General: Perennial herb from slender, woody stem-bases; flowering stems 3-8 cm tall, smooth or purplish glandular-hairy, leafless or with 1 to 3 leaves, many sterile leafy branches.
Leaves: Basal leaves few, if any; stem leaves numerous below, alternate, usually crowded, persistent for years, pear- to spoon-shaped or oblanceolate, 3-10 mm long, entire, fleshy, smooth or bases fringed.
Flowers: Inflorescence of terminal, single flowers or clusters of up to 4, lower branches often with leaf-like bractlets; petals white, 2.5-5 mm long, elliptic egg-shaped to broadly oblanceolate, clawed or not; calyces saucer-shaped, joined to the lower portion of the ovary, free hypanthium absent, smooth, purple-tinged, the lobes oval to oblong egg-shaped, 2-3 mm long, spreading; stamens 10.
Fruits: Capsules, 8-12 mm long, often purplish-mottled; seeds light brown, about 0.8 mm long.
Moist rock outcrops, streambanks, snowbed sites and scree slopes in the upper subalpine and alpine zones; frequent in the Coast-Cascade Mountains N to 57degreeN and Vancouver Island, rare on the Queen Charlotte Islands and in E BC; N to SE AK and S toMT, ID, NV and CA.
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)
