Wright’s golden-saxifrage

Chrysosplenium alternifolium Linnaeus var. wrightii (Franchet & Savatier) Sutó

Stolons white, tan, or yellowish, 1-2.5(-3) mm diam., usually densely villous, hairs reddish brown. Flowering stems erect, branching in distal 1/10-1/4(-1/3), (1.5-)2-11(-16) cm, sparsely to densely villous especially proximally, hairs reddish brown. Leaves alternate, fleshy. Stolon leaves: petiole (7-)25-55(-68) mm, sparsely to densely villous, hairs reddish brown; blade depressed-ovate to reniform, 4-19 × 7-24 mm, base cordate or truncate, margins 5-9-crenate, usually purple-spotted, usually ciliate, hairs white, surfaces glabrous or sparsely villous, especially near petiole, hairs usually white, brown, or reddish brown, sometimes purple. Cauline leaves absent or 1(-2); petiole 3-16(-24) mm, glabrous or sparsely villous, hairs reddish brown; blade ovate to broadly ovate, reniform, or flabellate, 3.5-12 × 4.5-19 mm, base cuneate, margins 3-7-crenate, usually glabrous, sometimes villous, hairs white, surfaces glabrous. Inflorescences terminal, 3-30-flowered, compact cymes; bracts green or greenish yellow, usually purple-spotted, foliaceous, usually ovate to flabellate or, rarely, elliptic, 3-13 × 2-15 mm, margins subentire or 3-7-crenate. Pedicels absent or 0.1-1.5 mm. Flowers: hypanthium green or greenish yellow, sometimes purple-spotted distally, turbinate, 1.2-2.2 × 1.8-3.5 mm, glabrous; sepals spreading, greenish yellow, purple, or reddish orange, usually purple-spotted throughout or distally, rarely not spotted, broadly ovate to depressed-ovate or nearly round, 0.9-2.3 × 1.2-3.1 mm, apex obtuse to rounded; nectary disc prominent, yellow or purple, 8-lobed; stamens 8, 0.7-0.9 mm; anthers yellow or purple, 0.2-0.3 × 0.2-0.3 mm; styles 0.5-0.9 mm. Seeds (2-)5-12, reddish brown, ovoid to ellipsoid, (0.8-)1-1.3 mm, glabrous. 2n = 24.

Flowering Jun-Aug. Gravelly tundra and stream banks, boulder fields, scree slopes, solifluction terraces, seeps; 0-2300 m; B.C., Yukon; Alaska; e Asia (Russia: Kamtchatka, e Siberia).

H. Hara (1957) recognized two varieties of Chrysosplenium wrightii. He considered var. wrightii to be restricted to Herald Island, the type locality, and var. beringianum (Rose) H. Hara to be the element in southern Alaska, St. Matthew Island and the Pribiloff Islands, and across the Aleutian Islands to Kamtchatka. He distinguished the varieties by the indumentum of the flowering stems and thickness of the leaf blades. These characters vary too widely among populations to warrant recognition of infraspecific taxa.