Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Caryophyllaceae > Spergula > Spergula arvensis

Spergula arvensis (devil's gut; corn spurry; pickpurse; field spurry; sandweed)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Spergula arvensis, the corn spurry, is a species of plant in the genus Spergula. It is the county flower of Montgomeryshire in the United Kingdom. It is considered an agricultural weed in western Canada.
View Wikipedia Record: Spergula arvensis

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [1]  The seed, and probably also the leaves, contain saponins; Although toxic, these substances are very poorly absorbed by the body and so tend to pass through without causing harm. They are also broken down by thorough cooking. Saponins are found in many plants, including several that are often used for food, such as certain beans. It is advisable not to eat large quantities of food that contain saponins. Saponins are much more toxic to some creatures, such as fish, and hunting tribes have traditionally put large quantities of them in streams, lakes etc in order to stupefy or kill the fish;
Lifespan [1]  Annual
Pollinators [1]  Flies, Bats
Structure [3]  Herb
Height [1]  20 inches (0.5 m)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [2]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [2]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [2]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Spergula arvensis

Protected Areas

+ Click for the list (70)

Ecosystems

Predators

+ Click for the list (17)

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Peronospora obovata[5]
Puccinia chasmatis[5]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0