Cannot identify this plant!

[Griffthegardener]

Hello everyone!
I signed up for an account on gardening forums mainly so I could ID this plant that grew randomly in a pot in my backyard over the winter. I live in the High Desert of Southern California.

I have never seen a plant like this around where I live and I noticed a couple other babies growing in several other pots around my property, till the squirrels took them. It has begun to flower and seems like it may be slowly dying possibly due to the weather.

I also attempted to use multiple plant identification apps with no real luck. Only thing the apps told me was that it could be a type of lettuce which seems totally wrong, or a type of miners lettuce, which I'm not familiar with. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Tetters]

Welcome Griff...Let`s hope someone from your neck of the woods knows this plant. I have been looking online at the purslane family, which is Miners lettuce plant among many others, in the Portulaca family.
I found this which might be interesting to you https://greenbeanconnection.wordpress.com/2019/06/24/super-herb-powerhouse-purslane/
With a bit of luck we will unravel the mystery between us. @Mrsclem is a dab hand at ID`s with her app - maybe she will find it?

 

[Mrsclem]

Welcome Griff...Let`s hope someone from your neck of the woods knows this plant. I have been looking online at the purslane family, which is Miners lettuce plant among many others, in the Portulaca family.
I found this which might be interesting to you https://greenbeanconnection.wordpress.com/2019/06/24/super-herb-powerhouse-purslane/
With a bit of luck we will unravel the mystery between us. @Mrsclem is a dab hand at ID`s with her app - maybe she will find it?

Sorry! No luck here either. My go-to app says lettuce.

 

[cpp gardener]

Really don't have a reasonable name for it, but it sort of resembles a Tradescantia or something in the Commelinaceae in the flower form.

 

[Tetters]

This is what is commonly known as miner`s lettuce.

The leaves look fleshy on the plant in question and could well belong to the portulaca/purslane family.

 

[Tetters]

Really don't have a reasonable name for it, but it sort of resembles a Tradescantia or something in the Commelinaceae in the flower form.

Funnily enough, @cpp gardener ''Bells of Ireland'' flower structure was one of the first I thought of in the Commelinaceae family, but the leaves were not spatulate, and this clue led to the purslanes.
It`s a puzzle!

 

[Griffthegardener]

View attachment 78067 This is what is commonly known as miner`s lettuce.View attachment 78068

The leaves look fleshy on the plant in question and could well belong to the portulaca/purslane family.

The plant seems to be beginning to grow these parts now as I have discovered this morning. I have seen a few pictures online of certain miners lettuce plants looking pretty similar to mine but without those white spots.
However most of the time when you look up miners lettuce you see those parts with the circular leaves and flowers coming out of the middle of the leaf like the pictures you supplied. I also read they can have white spots and rarely even red spots on them. So I'm starting to think this may be a variety of miners lettuce I just dont know! Apparently they dont usually get as big as the one in my garden as well. I'm wondering if it may be some sort of lookalike.

 

[Tetters]

There are about 100 species in this plant family - sea purslane is one of them

 

[Tetters]

Claytonia parviflora, Streambank Springbeauty, Southwest Desert Flora

I found this, looking under the family (new family name) Montiaceae

Claytonia parviflora

 

[SeniorCitizen]

Try researching Haworthias , one of many succulent plants of that classification.

 

[Tetters]

Try researching Haworthias , one of many succulent plants of that classification.

Thanks for the suggestion but I can`t think of any with spatulate leaves.

@Griffthegardener, is there any chance of an update? How is the plant growing now? Can we have a new picture please.

 

[Marck]

I concur with the earlier identification that this is a form of Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia). In parts of southern California there is a hybrid swarm involving numerous forms. The forms involved are usually divided into three species C. parviflora, C. perfoliata, and C. rubra, with several different subspecies of each. The Jepson Manual, a California flora, divides this complex into nine different taxa, but the plant pictured does not key out well to any of them. Like I said, a hybrid swarm of intergrading variability.

Striated variegation on leaves is a trait that shows up occasionally in this group, but is of no taxonomic significance.
Large cultivated forms of Miner's lettuce are most like Claytonia perfoliata ssp. perfoliata.