Saxifraga paniculata P. Mill.
White mountain saxifrage, livelong saxifrage.
Saxifragaceae, saxifrage family.
Fl. Austr. 5: 18. 1788.
Type: Garden material Chelsea Garden 1727. "Saxifraga sedi folio angustiore serrato Tourn. 252. Sedum serratum J.B.Ray, Hist. vol. 2, p. 1045" Miller scripsit. Sloane herbarium (BM) lectotype, selected by Webb and Gornall, Man. Saxifrag. 124. 1989.
Saxifraga aizoon Jacq. var. neogaea Butters
Chondrosea aizoon (Jacq.) Haw.
Chondrosea paniculata (P.
Mill,) A. Löve
Chondrosea paniuclata subsp. neogaea
(Butters) A. Löve
Saxifraga aizoon subsp. neogaea Butters
Vegetative morphology. Plants perennial herbs; 7–20 cm high (to 25 cm high in Greenland specimens); with a basal rosette of leaves that are often have conspicous white deposits at the hydathodes; vegetatively proliferating by bulbils or fragmentation (lateral shoots, often closely associated with the parent shoot). Caudex absent. Aerial stems erect; sparsely hairy. Leaves not heterophyllous; basal in a rosette. Leaves patent (basal leaves), or erect (flowering stem leaves). Leaves alternate; simple; evergreen, or marcescent (remaining either green or reddish during the winter). Petioles absent. Leaf blade bases truncate. Blades 7–20 mm long; 3–5.5 mm wide. Blades leathery; oblanceolate, or obovate, or spatulate; flat; with inconspicuous veins. Blades adaxial surface glabrous. Blades abaxial surface glabrous. Blade margins glandular-dotted (hydathodes, not glands), or serrulate, or crenate; with 7–10 glands per cm (hydathodes); glabrous. Conspicuous hydathodes present (on upper surface at each serration). Leaf apices acute, or obtuse.
Reproductive morphology. Flowering stems present. Flowering stems with leaves (leaves similar in shape but smaller than the basal leaves); hairy (with glandular hairs). Flowering stem hairs pubescent; glandular. Flowering stems glandular hairs present. Flowering stem hairs shorter than the diameter of the flowering stem; white or translucent (with brown glands on the ends). Inflorescence paniculate; 1–3 cm long. Pedicels present; with glandular hairs. Flowers per inflorescence 5–20; medium-sized, 5–15 mm in diameter or length; actinomorphic. Calyx sepals 5; free; 1.5–2 mm long; 0.9–1.2 mm wide. Calyx green, or purple, or red; hairy. Petals free; longer than the calyx; 5; white, or yellow (creamy); with contrasting markings (usually orange or purple spots); obovate; unlobed; 6–9 mm long; 2–2.7 mm wide. Stamens 10; filaments glabrous. Anthers purple becoming yellow; subglobose; 0.3–0.5 mm long. Nectaries present. Receptacle 0.5–1 mm high. Gynoecia partly inferior. Carpels partly fused; 2. Ovaries glabrous. Styles 2; free. Stigmas per style 1; capitate. Placentation axile. Ovules 20–50 (approx.). Fruit with calyx persisting (sepals diverging); dry; a capsule; spherical, or ovoid (globose); dehiscent; splitting to the base into separate segments. Fruit 3–6 mm long; 3.5–4.5 mm wide; brown. Styles modified and persisting. Seeds 20–50 (approx.); 0.7–0.9 mm long; brown; with surfaces smooth (at 10X, minutely roughened at 40X).
Chromosome information. 2n = 28. 28 (4x). -
Skovsted (1934); Löve and Löve (1951, 1956b Iceland); Jørgensen
et al. (1958 Greenland); Packer in Löve (1961 Canada); Dalgaard (1989
western Greenland). Numerous more southern counts
The basic chromosome number
is most probably x = 7 as there is a deviant report of 2n = 14 from
Souothern Europe (Corse, see Contandriopoulos and Gamisans 1974). Ploidy levels
recorded 4x.
Distribution. Northern hemisphere distribution: amphi-Atlantic (with outliers on Great Slave Lake and Lake Superior, Porsild, 1957). Arctic. Range in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago limited (recorded from seven locations on Baffin Island, rare to occasional and very local).
Ecology and habitat. Substrates: calcareous; rocks (on cliff ledges, in dry sunny situations). Habitats: Polunin (1940) noted that this species "flowers rather sparingly". Warming (1909) indicated that, in Greenland, this species flowers relatively late in July and exhibits marked protandry. The terminal flower is the first to open, and rarely are more than 2 stamens functional at the same time. The styles are at first very small, with the plane surfaces of the stigmas facing each other. As they develop they spread out. The surface of the stigmas has short club-shaped hairs. Self pollination may take place by the stigmas bending towards the anthers in which there may still be some pollen left. Fruit has been observed to ripen in West Greenland.
Taxon as an environmental indicator. Plants are indicative of dry calcareous environments. The northernmost record is from West Greenland, 74°30'N (Polunin 1940). The northernmost record from Canada is Baffin Island, Pangnirtung, 66°08'N (Canada).
Indigenous knowledge. Anderson (1939) reported that this species was
widely used by Eskimos in Alaska where the succulent leaves were eaten fresh or
in oil. They could be preserved for long periods in oil.
Kjellman (1882)
found people of Chukchi produced a form of "sauerkraut" composed largely of the
leaves of Petasites and S. paniculata by tightly packing the
leaves into a sealskin bag.
Porsild (1953) noted that the leaves ae eaten
raw with seal blubber or as "saukraut" by the Chukchi and the western Eskimo.
Notes. The name S. paniculata Miller is used in place of the
name S. aizoon Jacq. which was used in many North American Floras (see,
e.g., Polunin 1940, Porsild 1957, Scoggan 1978, and Gleason and Cronquist 1991).
Saxifraga paniculata was published in 1768 (Gard. Dict. ed. 8, no. 3) and
predates the name S. aizoon Jacq. published in 1778 (Fl. Austr. 5: 18).
Warming (1909) noted that the leaves after dying persist for a long time in
a black, decaying condition.
Inorthern Europe, this species belongs to a
complex in which has polymorphic entities have been recorded (Engler and
Irmscher 1919). Polunin (1940) suggested that in the Arctic Archipelago it
appears to vary very little.
Galloe (1910) noted that each tooth of the
leaves has a vein that terminates in a hydathode with a large cavity. The
epidermis of the hydathode has 1–2 water pores and some of the cells are
elongated as papillae. In many of the cells of the mesophyll there are
quantities of tanin.
This Amphi-Atlantic arctic-alpine polymorphic species
is widely distributed in the mountains of western and central Europe. Arctic
plants differ from the typical race (2n = 28) in having longer different
testa papillas and thicker raphe, marking the place of capsule dehiscence.
American botanists have regarded arctic plants as S. paniculata subsp.
neogaea (2n = 28). The variability of S. paniculata,
however, is fairly large, so that the differences may not have any taxonomic
value. (Zhmylev in Elven et al. 2003)
There is a discrepancy between
Löve and Löve (1975), that included Iceland and Greenland plants in
subsp. neogaea, and Hultén and Fries (1986), that restricted
subsp. neogaea to Canada and U.S.A.
Illustrations. • Line drawing of plant habit. WHITE MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE, LIVELONG SAXIFRAGE. Plants have a basal rosette of leaves, flowering stems that are leafy and inflorescences with several flowers. • Herbarium specimen. CAN. 333902.. • Close-up of leaves. Basal rosette leaves with white deposits at the hydathodes. CAN 333902. • Arctic Island Distribution.
Cite this publication as: ‘S.G. Aiken, M.J. Dallwitz, L.L. Consaul, C.L. McJannet, L.J. Gillespie, R.L. Boles, G.W. Argus, J.M. Gillett, P.J. Scott, R. Elven, M.C. LeBlanc, A.K. Brysting and H. Solstad. 1999 onwards. Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. Version: 29th April 2003. http://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/’. Dallwitz (1980) and Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993, 1995, 2000) should also be cited (see References).
