Purslane Family (Portulacaceæ)
(A) Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica), although very delicate in appearance, is among our earliest flowering plants.
The weak stem is usually very crooked and is often prostrate on the ground; two linear-lanceolate leaves clasp it oppositely about halfway up. The opened flowers, somewhat less than an inch across, have five petals, two sepals, and five golden stamens that mature before the stigma. It is found in moist woods from Me. to Mich. and south to the Gulf.
(B) Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) (European) has a prostrate, juicy stem and thick, fleshy leaves; the latter are wedge-shaped with rounded ends. The stem is very branching and spreads or radiates from the root. The flowers are tiny, solitary, and yellowish, seated in the whorls of leaves that terminate the branches. Found in waste places anywhere and possibly indigenous in the Southwest.