How to distinguish Foamflower from Miterwort
Heart-leaved foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia sensu lato) and two-leaved miterwort (Mitella diphylla) have similar heart-shaped basal leaves. In the absence of other identifying characteristics, the orientation of the hairs on the basal leaf stalk may be used to distinguish the species. Tiarella cordifolia has dense spreading hairs (outward-facing, angled 90 degrees) of various lengths while Mitella diphylla has long retrorse hairs (backward-facing, angled 45 degrees or less) sparsely distributed along its basal leaf stalk. The following article explains this in more detail:
- How to distinguish Foamflower from Miterwort (googledoc with photos)
The description of Mitella diphylla in Flora of North America mentions the retrorse hairs on its basal leaf stalk, but as far as I know, @erthomson was the first iNaturalist user to show how to use this character to distinguish Mitella diphylla from Tiarella cordifolia.
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Version 2 of the googledoc published on November 23, 2022
The retrorse hairs were in our paper in Taxon, which came out spring of last year. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/tax.12450
Yudai Okuyama has confirmed that it also applies to Mitella nuda.
Thanks @ry_folk I missed that. I did not know retrorse hairs were also a character of Mitella nuda. (@erthomson FYI)
Yes, Flora of North America says about Mitella nuda petioles "longer hairs usually retrorse, sometimes spreading". http://beta.floranorthamerica.org/Mitella_nuda
The M. nuda petioles I've looked at show a fair bit of variability.
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