Micranthes pensylvanica (Swamp Saxifrage) - photos and description
Origin: Native.
General: Perennial plants with a single, stout stem and a basal rosette of large leaves. Stems are densely pubescent towards the bottom, less so towards the top.
Flowers: Inflorescence is a loose panicle, flowers white, flower measured at 9 mm diameter, petals to 4 mm long. A bract subtends each raceme in the panicle.
Leaves: Leaves are basal, oblanceolate, with a few very small teeth, ciliate, pubescent on central nerve of leaf bottoms, sparingly hairy on leaf tops. Leaf highlighted in photo above was 33 cm long and 5 cm wide.
Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora to 80 cm, above plant was 98 cm tall.
Habitat: Bogs, wet meadows, and wet woods.
Abundance: This plant is extremely rare, ranked as an S1 (as of 2021) by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre. As of 2015, it has been found growing in one location in the Hudson Bay district in east-central Saskatchewan. One plant was observed in 1980, 2 plants were observed in 2015. These are the only known occurrences of the plant in the province.
When and where photographed: Took the above photos July 6th and 7th, on sphagnum hummocks, wet black spruce woods, about 430 km northeast of our home in Regina, SK.