E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Caespitose, perennial herb from branched stem-bases, often forming mats; numerous leafy branches, the flowering stems 3-15 cm tall, glandular-hairy.

Leaves:
Basal leaves usually 3-lobed, the lobes linear to lanceolate, narrowed to wide stalks, lightly glandular-fringed to soft-hairy, crowded on sterile shoots, 5-20 mm long; stem leaves 2 to 5, alternate, entire or lower ones lobed, reduced.

Flowers:
Inflorescence of terminal, 2- to 10-flowered, somewhat flat-topped clusters; petals creamy white, deciduous, egg-shaped to broadly wedge-shaped, 3.5-5.5 mm long, narrowed to a broad base or claw, the tips rounded, sometimes notched; calyces broadly bell-shaped, joined to ovary for about the same to 1/2 length of lobes, the free hypanthium absent, the calyx lobes 5, egg-shaped to oblong, 1-3 mm long, purplish, glandular-hairy, spreading; stamens 10.

Fruits:
Capsules, 5-10 mm long; seeds dark brown, egg-shaped, about 0.5 mm long, minutely pimpled.

Notes:
A highly variable species complex in which many taxa have been described. Since there is no satisfactory treatment of even the North American representatives the recognition of the supposed taxa that occur in BC would serve little purpose here. For an alternative treatment see C.L. Hitchcock et al. (1961) or Scoggan (1978).