General: Caespitose, perennial herb forming thick cushions to 20 cm across and 2-7 cm tall; flowering stems 1-5 cm tall; plants generally smooth but bristle-fringed on leaves and calyces.
Leaves: Basal leaves lacking, stem leaves opposite, persistent, oblong- to egg-shaped, 1-5 mm long, fringed, unstalked, overlapping on non-flowering shoots.
Flowers: Inflorescence of single flowers, at ends of leafy branches; petals bright pink-purple to blue-purple, or rarely white, spoon-egg-shaped to egg-shaped-oblong, 6-9 mm long, 5- to 7-veined; calyces cup-shaped, lobed for 3/4 or more of length, free hypanthium absent, the lobes oblong-oval, 2-3.5 mm long, fleshy, coarsely fringed, erect or slightly spreading; stamens 10.
Fruits: Capsules, 6-9 mm long; seeds light brown, about 0.6 mm long, lightly veined.
Moist to mesic meadows fellfields, slopes and rock outcrops in the upper subalpine and alpine zones; frequent throughout BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NH, VT, WY, ID and OR; Iceland; N 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)
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