General: Prostrate shrub from a woody stem-base; stems trailing, freely branching and rooting, densely tufted to mat-forming.
Leaves: Alternate, evergreen, the leaf blades narrowly oblong to lanceolate, 0.8-3 cm long, broadest below the middle, blunt to rounded at the tip, squared-off to heart-shaped at the stalked base; the margins entire or with a few teeth on the lower half, often rolled under; slightly wrinkled to smooth, green and usually smooth above, thinly to densely white woolly-hairy below; midvein not stalked-glandular below; dead leaves withering but the remains persisting.
Flowers: Solitary, erect on leafless, woolly-hairy, 2- to 15-cm tall stalks; corollas white, 2-3 cm across, the petals 8 to 10, elliptic, spreading, 8-13 mm long; calyces sparsely woolly and with some black, gland-tipped hairs, the 8 to 10 lobes narrowly lanceolate, 4-8 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens numerous, the filaments smooth.
Fruits: Numerous achenes with long (to 4 cm), feathery styles.
Notes: Hybrids between this species and Dryas octopetala can occur where the two species grow together. Two subspecies with overlapping ranges occur in BC:
Dry to moist tundra, heath, rocky ridges, talus slopes and gravel bars in the montane to alpine zones, frequent in N BC, S to 55degreeN; N to AK and NT, E to NF and S to NH; Greenland.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
