Gorman’s dwarf primrose

Douglasia arctica Hooker var. gormanii (Constance) B. Boivin

Plants tightly cespitose cushions with branched caudex. Stems prostrate to ascending, densely covered with marcescent, imbricate, reddish brown leaves, and terminal, green leaf rosettes. Leaves erect, thin; blade linear to narrowly oblanceolate, 1-10 × 0.5-1 mm, margins entire, ciliate, hairs forked or branched, apex acute to obtuse, surfaces densely hairy, often glabrescent, hairs forked and branched. Scapes 1-3 mm in early anthesis, to 2 cm in fruit, densely hairy, hairs branched and stellate. Inflorescences 1-flowered, bracteate, sometimes ebracteate; bract 1, ovate-lanceolate, 1-2 × 0.5-1 mm, glabrous. Pedicels absent. Flowers: calyx 3-5 × 2-3 mm, glabrous; corolla rose-pink, limb 5- 8 mm diam., lobes 3-5 × 1 mm, margins entire.

Flowering early summer. Rocky sites, scree slopes in mountains; 300-1800 m; B.C., Yukon; Alaska.

Douglasia gormanii occurs throughout the mountains of central and southern Alaska and the Yukon; it is replaced by D. arctica to the north and by D. ochotensis and D. beringenis to the west.