Not quite as large as Star Chickweed (Stellaria pubera), but also worthy of attention as more than a mere weed. The neat habit, with tidily arranged opposite sessile leaves and flowers proportioned just right for the plant, would make this a good garden flower. This is a European import. It is listed as Myosoton aquaticum in the 1951 Check List of the Vascular Flora of Allegheny County, and many current references, but not all of them, classify it that way.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
STELLÀRIA L. CHICKWEED. STARWORT. Sepals 4–5. Petals (white) 4-5, deeply 2-cleft, sometimes none. Stamens 8, 10, or fewer. Styles 3, rarely 4 or 5, opposite as many sepals. Pod ovoid, 1-celled, opening by twice as many valves as there are styles, several–many-seeded. Seeds naked.—Flowers solitary or cymose, terminal or appearing lateral by the prolongation of the stem from the upper axils. (Name from stella, a star, in allusion to the star-shaped flowers.) ALSINE L. in part, not Wahlenb.
Stems and flower-stalks pubescent.
Leaves ovate, the lower on petioles of nearly their own length.
Styles 5; pods broadly ovoid.
S. aquática (L.) Scop. Perennial, glandular-pubescent; leaves large, ovate, acute, cordate, the lower petiolate; petals much exceeding the glandular-pubescent sepals. (Alsine Britton.)—Occasional on waste land, in parks, etc., in the Eastern States, w. Que. and Ont. (Adv. from Eu.)
