Flora of North America species comparison

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Cascadia

saxifrage
Habit Herbs, annual; herbage glabrous or sparsely red stipitate-glandular.
Flowering stems

trailing or suberect, leafy, 4–40 cm.
Leaves

cauline;

stipules absent;

petiole glabrous;

blade ovate to lanceolate, unlobed, base cuneate or attenuate to rounded, margins 3-toothed apically or not, ultimate margins entire, (without lime-secreting hydathodes), apex acute;

venation palmate or pinnate.
Inflorescences

poorly defined, usually paniculiform or racemiform thyrses, sometimes solitary flowers, 2–4-flowered, bracteate.
Flowers

hypanthium adnate to proximal 1/3 of ovary, free from ovary 0 mm, adnate portion increasing along with attached ovary at maturity to constitute 2/3–4/5 of fruit, green, (0.8–2 mm);

sepals 5, green;

petals 5, white;

nectary disc present;

stamens 10, (distinct);

filaments flattened, slightly widened at base;

ovary semi-inferior, 2-locular, carpels connate in proximal 1/3 or less;

placentation axile, appearing marginal above point of connation of ovaries;

styles 2;

stigmas 2.
Capsules

folliclelike, 2-beaked.
Seeds

brown, oblong, spiny in longitudinal rows.
x

= 8.

Cascadia
Distribution
w United States
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 1: w United States.

Johnson placed Saxifraga nuttallii in his monotypic genus Cascadia based on the unusual habit, free carpels, and spiny seeds. Molecular phylogenetic data (M. E. Mort and D. E. Soltis 1999; Soltis et al. 2001) placed Cascadia as sister to the southern South American (Tierra del Fuego) Saxifragodes D. M. Moore, both sister to Micranthes. Mort and Soltis considered the ovary of Cascadia to be superior because the two carpels are distinct to their bases; the hypanthium, fused to each carpel, gives the ovaries a semi-inferior appearance. Ovules in Cascadia are bitegmic, as in Saxifraga; those of Micranthes are usually unitegmic.

Species 1

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 8, p. 48. Author: Luc Brouillet.
Parent taxa Saxifragaceae
Subordinate taxa
C. nuttallii
Name authority A. M. Johnson: Amer. J. Bot. 14: 38, figs. 1, 2. 1927 ,
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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