Stiffly short-hair or hairy alum-root

Heuchera hispida Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 1: 188. 1813

Petioles glabrous or very short stipitate-glandular. Flowers: hypanthium free 1.5-2 mm, campanulate; petals purple or pink, wider than sepals, margins fimbriate. 2n = 14.

Flowering Apr-Jun. Rich woods often over base-saturated granite and gneiss, or in shallow rocky soil; 200-1300 m; Md., N.C., Va., W.Va.

Variety hispida occurs in the mountains and hills of western Maryland and Virginia, eastern West Virginia, and Surry County, North Carolina, where var. americana and Heuchera pubescens overlap; it is intermediate between var. americana and H. pubescens in floral characters. Variety hispida was confused with H. richardsonii for almost a century, beginning in 1849 when Gray reduced H. richardsonii to synonymy under H. hispida, after some seeds of H. richardsonii germinated among H. hispida plants in a labeled plot and later replaced them (C. O. Rosendahl et al. 1933).