Alpine alum-root

Herbs subcaulescent; caudex branched. Flowering stems 15-60 cm, glabrous or short stipitate-glandular. Leaves: pet-iole glabrous or short stipitate-glandular; blade rounded-cordate to orbiculate, often ± polygonal, deeply 5(-7+)-lobed, 3.5-10 cm, base usually cordate, sometimes nearly truncate, lobes usually triangular, sometimes ovate, margins raggedly dentate to serrate, apex usually acute, surfaces sparsely short stipitate-glandular, glabrate. Inflorescences diffuse. Flowers: hypanthium radially symmetric, free 0.4-0.5 mm, white, obconic, 2-3.5 mm, moderately long stipitate-glandular; sepals erect, green-tipped, equal, 0.5 mm, apex rounded; petals reflexed, white, narrowly elliptic, (clawed), unlobed, 1.8-2 mm, margins entire; stamens exserted 1-1.5 mm; styles exserted 2-2.5 mm, 2-4 mm, to 0.1 mm diam. Capsules ovoid, 4-6 mm, beaks divergent, not papillose. Seeds dark brown, narrowly ellipsoid, 0.7-0.8 mm, finely spiny. 2n = 14.

Flowering Jun-Aug. Rock ledges and crevices along cliffs to above tree line; 0-1500 m; Alta., B.C.; Alaska, Oreg., Wash.

Heuchera glabra occurs from near sea level in the Aleutian Islands and the Panhandle in Alaska to above the tree line on Mount Hood, Oregon, in the Cascades, Olympic Mountains, and Wenatchee Mountains in Washington, and in the Coast Mountains to the Selkirks Range in British Columbia. It intergrades with H. micrantha where their ranges overlap in British Columbia, and where the two species probably hybridize. It tends to occur at higher elevations than does H. micrantha. The Tlingit used this species to treat inflammation of the testicles from syphilis (D. E. Moerman 1998).