General: Dwarf perennial herb from a rhizome and branched woody stem-base; stems spreading to prostrate, tufted or mat-forming, 2-15 cm long, branching, stiff-appressed-hairy.
Leaves: Basal and alternate along the horizontal stems, long-stalked, palmately compound; leaflets 3, wedge-shaped, 1-3 cm long, squared-off and 3- to 5-toothed at the tip, often purplish beneath, stiff-appressed-hairy on both surfaces.
Flowers: Inflorescence a small, stalked, leafy-bracted, axillary or terminal cluster of 1 to 15 small flowers, the flowering shoots often shorter than the leaves; corollas pale yellow, saucer-shaped, the petals 5, oval to spoon-shaped, 1-3 mm long; calyces 5-lobed, the lobes triangular, 2-5 mm long, stiff-hairy, alternating with 5 shorter linear bractlets; ovaries superior; stamens 5.
Fruits: Achenes, egg- to pear-shaped, about 1.5 mm long, smooth, brown, on minute flattened stalks.
Dry to moist, gravelly meadows and rocky outcrops and ridges, snowbed areas, forest openings and disturbed soils in the montane to alpine zones; common throughout BC; circumboreal, N to AK, YT and NT, E to PQ and S to NH, CO and CA; Eurasia.
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)
A very shade-intolerant, subalpine to alpine, circumpolar evergreen dwarf shrub (transcontinental in North America). Occurs in alpine tundra and subalpine boreal climates on fresh to moist, nitrogen-poor soils (Mor humus forms); its occurrence increases with increasing latitude and duration of snow cover. Sporadic to scattered in heath communities and parkland forests on water-shedding sites. Usually associated with Barbilophozia j1Derkeiand ericaceous shrubs. An oxylophytic species characteristic of alpine and subalpine communities.
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