I wonder if it could be a 4-petaled form of a normally 5 petaled flower. Is that the only one you saw?

I thought of that initially, because it does look a bit like Triodanis; however, there several identical plants with a single, 4-petaled flower on the terminal end of each stem. I cannot find anything similar in the books.

My first thought was flax - but I'm not sure. I am growing flax for the first time from seed this year, and the leaves kind of look like that.

I was actually thinking Triodanis leptocarpa but if they are all much alike it could be something else. Any chance of getting some detailed pictures of the flower? I could probably key it out if I could see the position of the ovary, details of the pistil, and a better view of the leaves.

I'm going to head back to that area in a couple of days, and will post the results. We did see T. leptocarpa there, so maybe those "similar" flowers had 5 petals. I've been fooled before by immature, stunted, or non-typical plants, and suspect this is another entry for the red-faced ledger - sigh.

Lycopus, I went back to the shale barrens today and found several Triodanis leptocarpa specimens with just 4 petals. I also found a half dozen with three. Then at a later location, I found a T. perfoliata specimen that was very nontypical, with only four petals in light rose. I guess that genus can be pretty variable. Thanks for helping with the mystery.

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