General: Plants perennial, loosely mat-forming, from a branched caudex.
Stems: Stems prostrate. Scapes solitary, sparsely to densely hairy with long, soft, shaggy hairs, 2-10 cm tall.
Leaves: Leaves in multiple dense basal rosettes, strap-shaped to oblong, margins ciliate, surfaces usually grey soft-hairy with simple hairs (rarely glabrescent), 3-15 mm.
Flowers: Inflorescences of 2-8 flowers; involucral bracts lanceolate to ovate. Flowers short-stalked; corollas salverform, white to pink-tinged with a yellow throat (throat turning pinkish with age), 4-8 mm wide; calyces broadly campanulate to subglobose, sometimes slightly keeled, long-hairy, lobes ovate-lanceolate 2-5 (8) mm; pedicels erect, 0.5-1.5 mm long, shorter than the calyces. Flowering Jun-Aug.
Fruits: Capsules globose or subglobose, about equalling the calyx, 5-valvate.
1. Rosette leaves smooth to hairy but not grey soft-hairy; flower stalks longer than flowers.
2. Involucral bracts wide and leaf-like, oblong to narrowly egg-shaped; corollas nearly included in calyx tubes; calyx lobes narrowly egg-shaped, about as long as the tubes.................A. occidentalis
2. Involucral bracts lanceolate to linear; corollas slightly longer than calyx tubes; calyx lobes more or less triangular, shorter than the tubes.....................A. septentrionalis
Source: Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Habitat / Range
Mesic to dry, calcareous meadows, gravelly areas, rocky slopes, heath, and tundra in the subalpine and alpine zones. Rare in n and se BC (Rocky Mts.); AK east to NU, south to NM; Eurasia.
This distinctive, showy species is closely associated with calcareous environments and coarse, well-drained soils. Our plants represent the North American component of a circumpolar complex; the remaining taxa in this complex occur in Eurasia. North American and northern Eurasian populations of A. chamaejasme have traditionally been attributed to ssp. lehmanniana (Spreng.) Hult.; however, as ssp. lehmanniana should properly apply only to European populations (at least populations from the Caucasus), northern and North American plants are better recognized as ssp. andersonii (Elven 2013). The distribution of this species, both in North America and Eurasia, is characterized by numerous widely disjunct populations.
Source: The Vascular Flora of British Columbia, Draft Version February 2014
Author: Jamie Fenneman
Ecology
Ecological Framework for Androsace chamaejasme ssp. lehmanniana
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)
