| Author | (J.F. Gmelin) G. Don | |
| Distribution | Throughout the southern half of the Coastal Plain, including the Sandhills region. A few records farther north, in Nash and Tyrrell counties.
This is a Southern species, ranging barely to southeastern VA, and south to the Gulf Coast, and back north to OK and AR. Both species of Miteola are nearly absent away from the Coastal Plains.
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| Abundance | Fairly common in the Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) belt from Craven and Carteret counties southwest to the SC line, but generally uncommon farther inland to the Sandhills. Very rare north of Craven and Harnett counties. The NCNHP's State Rank of S3 seems to be conservative, and S4 seems more accurate to the website editors. | |
| Habitat | This is a species of pine savannas, wet powerline clearings that mimic savannas, margins of pocosins, streamhead and pocosin seepages, and around vernal pools. The species grows in more acidic, pine-related habitats than does M. petiolata, which grows in muddier and richer wet ground. | |
| Phenology | Blooms from late June to August, and fruits from September to October. | |
| Identification | Though this is a slender species, it is quite distinctive and unmistakable. It has a slender and erect stem, unbranched, reaching about 1 foot tall. It has a few pairs of very short stem leaves, each sessile and ovate, barely 2/3-inch long. Unlike with M. petiolata, which has flowering spikes scattered over the top half of the plant, the flower clusters in M. sessilifolia are strictly terminal, at the end of the stem. There are several such spike-like cymes, each spreading in different directions from the stem tip (or on side stalks from the tip), with each spike being about 1-inch long, arcing downward, with numerous tiny white flowers on just one side of the spike. The overall effect at a distance is a very slender plant that has a flat-topped inflorescence of tiny white spikes. If you spend time working savannas toward the coast in summer and early fall, you ought to be able to spot this unusual plant. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | This species was formerly included in the genus Cynoctonum, as C. sessilifolium. The change in genus has altered the specific epithet, and it is now Mitreola sessilfolia.
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| Other Common Name(s) | Small-leaved Miterwort. Most references have given this genus the common name of "miterwort". As Mitella diphylla, a saxifrage, is named as Twoleaf Miterwort, most recent references are starting to use "hornpod" for the group name. Nonetheless, it may be hard to shake the name of "miterwort" for the Miteola species! | |
| State Rank | S3 [S4] | |
| Global Rank | G4G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FACW link |
| USACE-emp | FACW link |
