Family: Saxifragaceae,
Saxifrage
Genus: Mitella
Description
General: perennial from rhizomes, occasionally with
stolons, the stems slender, 20-30 cm tall, naked or with 1
or 2 membranous bracts or even with 1 (2) reduced leaves,
from glandular-short-hairy to nearly hairless.
 Leaves: basal, long-stalked, the blades heart-shaped,
2-5 cm broad and usually somewhat longer, almost
hairless to coarsely stiff-hairy on both surfaces, shallowly
and indistinctly 5- to 9-lobed and doubly blunt-toothed.
 Flowers: 6-25 in a narrow spike, the flowers stalks 2-7
mm long. Petals 5, greenish, 2-3 mm long, fringed into 4-10
thread-like side segments. Calyx broadly saucer-shaped,
becoming more cup-shaped in fruit, 3-4 (5) mm, broad, the
lobes triangular, spreading to curved back. Stamens 5,
opposite the petals. Styles almost lacking, the 2 stigmas
nearly stalkless, 2-lobed and heart-shaped in outline as
viewed from above.
Flowering time: June-August.
 Fruits: 2-sided capsules, splitting open widely at tip as
cupped structures holding shiny, black seeds.
Distribution
Moist woods, especially along streams, to wet mountain
meadows, in w. and c. parts of MT. Also from AK, along
the coast, Alberta to n.e. CA and CO. |
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