General: Perennial herb from slender stolons; stems succulent, ascending to erect, to 15 cm long, with erect portions to 10 cm tall, 2- or 3-branched near tips, trailing shoots (stolons) leafy.
Leaves: Basal leaves round to kidney-shaped, 5-10 (12) mm wide, shallowly 3- to 7-lobed, not noticeably veined, sometimes sparsely hairy above near sinuses, the stalks 1-2 cm long, smooth; stem leaves 1 to 4, egg- to nearly kidney-shaped, shallowly lobed, smooth.
Flowers: Inflorescence terminal, of clusters of 3 to 10 flowers, the flowers top-shaped, 2-3 mm across; bracts green but often purple-dotted, egg-shaped, slightly lobed to entire; petals lacking; calyces joined to lower half of ovaries (the hypanthium), the lobes 4, oval, erect, mostly green, sometimes tinged with purple, obscurely 1-veined, triangular to egg-shaped, 1 mm long and about as wide, the two pairs alike; stamens 4 (3), opposite sepals; styles 0.2-0.3 mm long, the disk absent.
Fruits: Capsules, the free portion 2-lobed, top- to bell-shaped; seeds smooth, 0.6-0.8 mm long, light reddish-brown.
Notes: Included by some authors in C. alternifolium L., but it is quite distinct (Packer 1991).
Moist to wet shady banks, rock crevices, mossy seeps, and shorelines in the montane and subalpine zones; common throughout N and E BC, infrequent south to 51degreeN in the Coast/Cascade Mountains; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to N PQ and Labr. and S to WA, disjunct in CO; Eurasia.
Ecological Framework for Chrysosplenium tetrandrum
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)
