Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Chrysosplenium

Chrysosplenium iowense

dorine, golden-carpet, golden-saxifrage, water-carpet

Iowa golden carpet, Iowa golden-saxifrage
Habit Herbs, rhizomatous, stoloniferous, (rhizomes and stolons with functional leaves or stolon leaves reduced, nonfunctional, scalelike); caudex absent.
Flowering stems

repent, decumbent, or ascending to erect, leafy or leafless, (1.2–)2–30 cm (often as short as 2 cm in C. wrightii), glabrous or sparsely to densely villous.

erect, branching in distal 1/6–1/3, 3–15 cm, glabrous.
Leaves

cauline or arising from stolons or rhizomes, opposite or alternate;

stipules absent;

petiole present, glabrous or villous;

blade ovate, depressed-ovate, depressed-elliptic, reniform, flabellate, or, sometimes, nearly orbiculate, unlobed, base attenuate, cuneate, truncate, or cordate, ultimate margins subentire, crenate, crenulate, or crenate-dentate, crenae sometimes prominent and margins appearing ± lobed, apex obtuse, rounded, or truncate, surfaces glabrous or sparsely villous to villous;

venation palmate.

alternate, membranous.
Cauline leaves

1–3;

petiole 3–23(–26) mm, glabrous or villous proximally, hairs purplish;

blade depressed-ovate to reniform or flabellate, 6–17 × 9–23 mm, base cordate or, rarely, cuneate, margins 5–9-crenate, glabrous, surfaces glabrous abaxially and adaxially or, rarely, villous near petiole, hairs purplish.
Inflorescences

simple or compound cymes, from terminal bud in rosette, 2–30-flowered, sometimes flowers solitary, bracteate.

terminal, 3–12-flowered, compact cymes;

bracts greenish yellow, not purple-spotted, foliaceous, ovate to depressed-ovate or flabellate, 2–10 × 2–11 mm, margins 3–7-crenate.
Pedicels

absent or 0.1–1.2 mm.
Flowers

hypanthium 1/2–3/4 adnate medially or distally to ovary, 0.5–1.5 mm free from ovary, greenish or yellow-green;

sepals 4, yellow, greenish yellow, green, greenish red, reddish orange, or purple, sometimes purple-spotted;

petals absent;

nectary disc conspicuous or apparently absent;

stamens 2–8, usually 4 or 8;

filaments lanceolate to narrowly oblong;

ovary 1/2–3/4-inferior, 1-locular, carpels connate 3/4–4/5 their lengths;

placentation parietal;

styles 2;

stigmas 2.

hypanthium yellow or greenish yellow, not purple-spotted, campanulate, 1.2–2.3 × 1.5–3 mm, glabrous;

sepals spreading, yellow or greenish yellow, not purple-spotted, ovate to broadly ovate, 0.9–1.5 × 1.1–2 mm, apex obtuse to rounded;

nectary disc inconspicuous, yellow, unlobed;

stamens 2–8, 0.6–0.7 mm;

anthers yellow, 0.1–0.2 × 0.1–0.2 mm;

styles 0.3–0.4 mm.
Capsules

(cuplike after dehiscence), 2-beaked (beaks divergent).

Seeds

dark brown or reddish brown, ellipsoid, ovoid, or spheroid, smooth.

(8–)20–30(–56), reddish brown, ovoid to ellipsoid, (0.5–)0.6–0.9 mm, glabrous.
Stolon(s)

leaves: petiole 7–43 mm, sparsely villous, hairs white or reddish brown;

blade depressed-ovate to reniform, 6–13 × 7–18 mm, base cordate, margins 5–9-crenate, not purple-spotted, glabrous or sparsely ciliate, hairs white, surfaces glabrous or sparsely villous, especially near petiole, hairs usually white, sometimes purplish.
x

= 11.

2n

= ca. 120.

Chrysosplenium

Chrysosplenium iowense
Phenology Flowering May–Jun.
Habitat Marshes, bogs, wet meadows, stream banks, moist seeps, algific talus slopes, 500-1500 m
Distribution
from USDA
North America; s South America; Eurasia
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
IA; MN; AB; BC; MB; NT; SK
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species ca. 60 (6 in the flora).

A wide range of chromosome numbers has been reported in Chrysosplenium. M. Nakazawa et al. (1997) and D. E. Soltis et al. (2001b) hypothesized that these numbers arose from an ancestral base of x = 11, with multiple lines of dysploidy (reported as aneuploidy). The historical division of the genus into two major clades—opposite-leaved species and alternate-leaved species—is supported by flavonoid (B. A. Bohm and F. W. Collins 1979) and molecular data (Nakazawa et al.; Soltis et al.). Phylogenetic analyses using the rbcL and matK genes (Nakazawa et al.; Soltis et al.) have provided limited resolution for species-level relationships.

The relationship of the alternate-leaved, North American species to those in Europe and Asia has not been examined in detail. Morphological similarities between the North American species and Eurasian Chrysosplenium alternifolium Linnaeus have caused some authors to treat C. iowense, C. rosendahlii, C. tetrandrum, and C. wrightii as infraspecific taxa of C. alternifolium. Each of them is maintained here as a distinct species pending further studies.

Stamen number can vary among flowers within an inflorescence in some alternate-leaved species (C. O. Rosendahl 1947; J. G. Packer 1963), with lateral flowers sometimes smaller and having fewer stamens than the central flowers. In species usually producing eight stamens, Packer observed that variable stamen numbers resulted from the systematic failure of stamens to develop. Stamens alternating with the styles are suppressed first. In flowers with fewer than four stamens, the stamens alternating with the styles are suppressed. This corresponds with developmental observations made by L.-P. Ronse Decraene et al. (1998) in Chrysosplenium alternifolium Linnaeus.

D. B. O. Savile (1953) demonstrated splash-cup dispersal of seeds in Chrysosplenium americanum, reporting a maximum dispersal distance of 40 cm in the laboratory. R. M. Weber (1979) reported a maximum dispersal distance of 30 cm for C. iowense in the field and 45 cm in the laboratory. Among three Japanese species examined in the field, H. Nakanishi (2002) reported a maximum dispersal distance of 116 cm.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Iowa populations of Chrysosplenium iowense are widely disjunct from Canadian populations. The former are thought to represent Pleistocene relicts, isolated in the Driftless Area of northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota. R. M. Weber (1979) studied the reproductive biology and ecology of the species in northeastern Iowa.

H. Hara (1957) treated Chrysosplenium iowense as synonymous with C. alternifolium Linnaeus var. sibiricum H. Hara. J. G. Packer (1963) recognized the close similarity between C. iowense and C. alternifolium var. sibiricum but maintained the two as distinct species in the absence of a modern, detailed analysis of the C. alternifolium complex. That approach is adopted here.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Leaves opposite, sometimes alternate distally; inflorescences solitary flowers or open cymes
→ 2
1. Leaves alternate; inflorescences compact cymes
→ 3
2. Anthers purple, red, or orange; leaf blade margins subentire or 5-7(-9)-crenate or -crenulate; seeds puberulent; c, e North America.
C. americanum
2. Anthers yellow; leaf blade margins 9-17(-21)-crenate or -crenate-dentate; seeds glabrous; w North America.
C. glechomifolium
3. Nectary discs prominent, yellow or purple, 8-lobed; stolons white, tan, or yellowish, 1-2.5(-3) mm diam., usually densely villous, hairs reddish brown; stamens 8; leaves fleshy; petioles of stolon leaves sparsely to densely villous, hairs reddish brown.
C. wrightii
3. Nectary discs apparently absent or yellow, unlobed; stolons white, 0.3-1.2 mm diam., sparsely villous, hairs white, reddish brown, or purplish; stamens 2-8; leaves membranous or fleshy; petioles of stolon leaves sometimes glabrous, usually sparsely villous, hairs white or reddish brown
→ 4
4. Stamens (3-)4; sepals usually erect, sometimes spreading.
C. tetrandrum
4. Stamens 2-8; sepals spreading
→ 5
5. Sepals yellow or greenish yellow, not purple-spotted; temperate or boreal.
C. iowense
5. Sepals green or greenish yellow, usually purple-spotted distally, rarely not purple-spotted; arctic.
C. rosendahlii
Source FNA vol. 8, p. 70. Authors: Craig C. Freeman, Nicholas D. Levsen. FNA vol. 8, p. 73.
Parent taxa Saxifragaceae Saxifragaceae > Chrysosplenium
Sibling taxa
C. americanum, C. glechomifolium, C. rosendahlii, C. tetrandrum, C. wrightii
Subordinate taxa
C. americanum, C. glechomifolium, C. iowense, C. rosendahlii, C. tetrandrum, C. wrightii
Synonyms C. alternifolium var. iowense
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 398. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 189. 1754 , Rydberg: in N. L. Britton, Man. Fl. N. States, 483. 1901 (as iowensis) ,
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).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers