Saxifrage Family

Saxifragaceae (saks-ih-frag-AY-see-ee)

Iconic Features

• Perennial herbs
• Often rounded leaves in a basal rosette
• Usually 5-petaled flowers
• Hypanthium present

Description (Jepson)

• Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
  • 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
  • Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
  • Flower parts in fours and fives
  • Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
  • Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
  • Taproot system
• Perennial herbs
• Leaves
  • Generally in a basal rosette
    • Any stem leaves are alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
  • Usually wide and rounded; sometimes succulent
  • Often with a scalloped or coarsely-toothed edge
• Flowers
  • Inflorescence (flower arrangement) in a variety of forms
  • Usually bisexual, usually radially-symmetrical, star- or bell-shaped flowers
  • Usually 5 sepals (usually green outer flower parts) and 5 separate petals
    • Petals are white, yellow, or pink, and sometimes toothed or fringed
    • Usually 2 pistils (female flower parts), which may be partly fused
  • Sepals, petals, and stamens (male flower parts) fused at base into a cup-like structure (hypanthium)
  • Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts) to inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
• Fruit is a capsule with many small seeds (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity)

Notes

• Approximately 600 species
  • Found especially in northern temperate and cold climates
  • Most grow in moist, shaded woodlands
    • The Pacific Northwest has the greatest number of species in the world (Emily-Bell)
  • Includes saxifrages (Micranthes species), woodland stars (Lithophragma species), sugar scoops (Tiarella species), alumroots (Heuchera species), fringe cups (Tellima species), and astilbes (Astilbe species)
• Some species, e.g. coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea), are cultivated as ornamentals
• Scientific and common name from the included genus Saxifraga, from the Latin saxum, “rock,” and frango, “to break”
  • Saxifraga species are renowned for the ability to thrive in the crevices of exposed, alpine crags, thus appearing to break rock (Encyclopædia Britannica 2016)
  • Pliny (23 AD-79 AD) wrote in his Natural History that the name referred to the supposed ability of some species to break up kidney and bladder stones (Idaho 2012)
• Represented by 3 species at Edgewood

Specific References

Emily-Bell. Saxifragaceae – Saxifrage family. Better Learning through Botany.

Encyclopædia Britannica. 2016, Jan. 29. Saxifragaceae. Britannica.

Idaho Mountain Wildflowers. 2012, Jun. 27. Saxifrage family, Saxifragaceae.

General References

Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.

Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.

Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.

Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.

Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.

Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.

Flora of North America. efloras.org.

Harris, J.G., and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.

Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

Native American Ethnobotany DB.

Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.

Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family