Hawkweed-leaved saxifrage

Saxifraga hieraciifolia Waldstein & Kitaibel ex Willdenow, Sp. Pl. 2: 641. 1799 (as hieracifolia); S. hieraciifolia var. angusticapsula Hultén; S. hieraciifolia var. rufopilosa Hultén

Plants mostly solitary, with short caudices, sometimes rhizomatous. Leaves basal; petiole sometimes indistinct, flattened, 2-4 cm; blade ovate to elliptic, 2-6 cm, ± fleshy, base cuneate to slightly attenuate, margins usually ± evenly serrulate to denticulate, ciliate, surfaces sparsely to densely hairy and sparsely stipitate-glandular. Inflorescences 30+-flowered, constricted, spikelike thyrses, 7-30 cm, tangled-hairy proximally, densely purple-tipped stipitate-glandular distally. Flowers: sepals spreading to reflexed, triangular to ovate; petals dark reddish purple, not spotted, narrowly ovate to lanceolate, slightly clawed, 1.5-3 mm, equaling sepals; filaments linear, flattened; pistils connate to 1/2 their lengths; ovary 1/2+ inferior. Capsules reddish to purple, valvate. 2n = 112, 120.

Flowering summer. Wet, mossy tundra, streamsides, ledges, crevices; 0-2000 m; Greenland; B.C., N.W.T., Nunavut, Yukon; Alaska, Mont.; Europe; Asia.

In British Columbia, Micranthes hieraciifolia is disjunct between the far north and the Okanagan-Thompson Plateau in the south (S. A. Harris 2003).