Upright Chickweed

Upright Chickweed - Moenchia erecta

Description

A very short, erect, white flowered plant with greyish glaucous leaves. 4 petals, unlike other plants in this family.

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

4 petals

Recording advice

Close-up of flowers and general photo of plant in habitat. (RPR) 

Habitat

Sandy habitats such as sandy grassland and dunes.

When to see it

Flowers April to June.

Life History

Annual

UK Status

Occasional in Britain.

VC55 Status

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi and Evans 1988) it was found in 5 of the 617 tetrads, and and in the Flora of Rutland (Messenger 1971) in 1 tetrads

In the current checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Rare, dry heath-grassland. 

It is listed on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall and Woodward 2022) as Locally Scarce 

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2025+ | 2020-2024 | pre-2020

UK Map

Additional images

All NatureSpot records