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Alternate-Leaved Golden-Saxifrage

Alternate-Leaved Golden-Saxifrage

Chrysosplenium alternifolium

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How common: Common

Alternate-Leaved Golden-Saxifrage is a tiny, mat-forming plant of wet, shady places in spring. It has soft, kidney-shaped leaves and clusters of yellow‑green flowers that lack true petals. You can spot it by springs, along stream banks and in damp woodland.

Did you know?

  • The yellow-green “petals” are actually small leaf-like parts just below the flowers.
  • Its name refers to the leaves appearing one by one up the stem, not in pairs.

About the species

Identification

Low, creeping perennial forming soft mats; upright flowering shoots 5–15 cm tall. Stems are thin with only 1–3 leaves. Leaves are on stalks, round to kidney-shaped with shallow scallops, slightly hairy. Flower clusters are small and many-branched; flowers are tiny, yellow‑green and without petals. The showy yellow‑green parts are the small leaves below the flowers. The central flower often has five green segments, others four. Later the fruit opens like a little cup with dark brown to almost black seeds. A similar northern species has only four pollen-bearing tips per flower; this one has eight. Flowers in Finland in May–June.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

water

Flowering

May–Jun

About the habitat

Prefers constantly damp places: seepage areas and springs, stream and ditch edges, wet hollows, marshy lake shores, and rich, moist woods. Common in southern Finland, rare in central Finland; only scattered further north.

Sources

Photo: Robert Flogaus-Faust, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysosplenium alternifolium 6 RF.jpg

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Sisävedet: lähteiköt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38733

Text: Pinkka: IPS-177 Fennoscandian flora - Centaurea-Empetrum, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38733

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kev%C3%A4tlinnunsilm%C3%A4

See also