General: Perennial herb from a short stem base and a bulbous base; stems several, ascending, glabrous, 10-30 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves numerous, the blades round to kidney-shaped, 1-4 cm wide, palmately veined, shallowly lobed or coarsely toothed, stalks 1-6 cm long with expanded, overlapped thickened bases, these woolly-hairy on the margins; stem leaves similar, few, reduced, near the base of the stem.
Flowers: Inflorescence of several stalked flowers in a loose, elongate, terminal cluster; corollas white, usually with yellow centres, 6-11 mm long and wide; calyces shorter than the clefts of the corollas, the lobes linear-lanceolate, glabrous or minutely glandular.
1. Plants bearing well-developed, brown-woolly tubers at the base; rare in the lowland zone...................................R. tracyi
1. Plant without tubers, but the leaf stalks strongly dilated and overlapping to form a bulbous base; infrequent to frequent in the upper montane to alpine zones..................................R. sitchensis
Source: Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Ecology
Ecological Framework for Romanzoffia sitchensis
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, 2008)
Moist to wet cliffs and talus slopes from the upper montane to alpine zones; frequent on Vancouver Island, less frequent on the Queen Charlotte Islands, Cascade Mountains and SE BC; N to SE AK, E to AB and S to ID, MT and N CA.
