Saxifraga oppositifolia |
Saxifraga mertensiana |
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purple mountain saxifrage, purple or purple mountain saxifrage, purple saxifrage, saxifrage à feuilles opposées, twinflower saxifrage |
Merten's or wood or woodland saxifrage, Mertens' saxifrage, wood saxifrage, woodland saxifrage |
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Habit | Plants mat- or cushion-forming (with trailing, ± woody stems), not stoloniferous, rhizomatous. | Plants solitary or in clumps, not stoloniferous, with caudex or short-rhizomatous. | ||||
Leaves | cauline (marcescent, crowded), opposite (rarely alternate); petiole absent; blade oblong to ± broadly obovate, unlobed, 2–5 mm, leathery, margins entire, bristly-ciliate, with 1(–3) lime-secreting hydathodes (in pit, secretion obvious), apex obtuse, surfaces glabrous. |
basal and cauline, (basal persistent, cauline ± inconspicuous); petiole rounded, 2–20 mm; blade round to reniform, irregularly shallowly lobed, 20–80(–100) mm, thin, margins serrate, stipitate glandular-ciliate, apex obtuse to rounded, surfaces sparsely hairy. |
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Inflorescences | solitary flowers, ebracteate, 1–5 cm, glabrate or sparsely purple-tipped stipitate-glandular. |
30+-flowered, open, much-branched thyrses, usually some or all flowers replaced by bulbils (sometimes bulbils absent), 15–40 cm, dark purple-tipped stipitate-glandular; bracts (± inconspicuous), petiolate or sessile. |
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Flowers | sepals erect, ovate, margins stiffly ciliate or not, surfaces hairy, stipitate-glandular, or glabrous; petals purple to pink, rarely white, often drying violet, not spotted, obovate to elliptic, (2–)5–12(–20) mm, longer than sepals; ovary ± superior. |
sepals reflexed (at least in fruit), ovate to elliptic, margins eciliate, surfaces sparsely stipitate-glandular or glabrous; petals white, not spotted, narrowly ovate to elliptic, (3–)4–6 mm, longer than sepals; filaments strongly club-shaped; ovary superior. |
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Capsules | ± folliclelike. |
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2n | = 36, ca. 48, 50. |
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Saxifraga oppositifolia |
Saxifraga mertensiana |
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Phenology | Flowering spring–summer. | |||||
Habitat | Moist to wet stream banks, mossy cliffs and slopes, waterfall spray zones | |||||
Elevation | 0-2500 m [0-8200 ft] | |||||
Distribution |
AK; CO; ID; MT; NY; OR; VT; WA; WY; AB; BC; MB; NS; NT; NU; ON; QC; YT; Eurasia; arctic and alpine
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AK; CA; ID; MT; OR; WA; AB; BC
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Discussion | Subspecies 7 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Plants of Saxifraga mertensiana bear bulbils in the axils of basal leaves. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 8, p. 136. | FNA vol. 8, p. 146. | ||||
Parent taxa | ||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | S. mertensiana var. eastwoodiae | |||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 402. 1753 , | Bongard: Mém. Acad. Imp. Sci. St.-Pétersbourg, Sér. 6, Sci. Math. 2: 141. 1832 , | ||||
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