Skip Navigation
Sign In
  • Home
  • Search
    • Search Collections
    • Map Search
  • Chicago Botanic Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Denver Botanic Gardens
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Desert Botanical Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • NY Botanical Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Sitemap

Chrysosplenium

Chrysosplenium
Family: Saxifragaceae
Chrysosplenium image
Paul Rothrock
  • FNA
  • Gleason & Cronquist
  • Resources
Craig C. Freeman, Nicholas D. Levsen in Flora of North America (vol. 8)
Herbs, rhizomatous, stoloniferous, (rhizomes and stolons with functional leaves or stolon leaves reduced, nonfunctional, scalelike); caudex absent. Flowering stems repent, decumbent, or ascending to erect, leafy or leafless, (1.2-)2-30 cm (often as short as 2 cm in C. wrightii), glabrous or sparsely to densely villous. Leaves cauline or arising from stolons or rhizomes, opposite or alternate; stipules absent; petiole present, glabrous or villous; blade ovate, depressed-ovate, depressed-elliptic, reniform, flabellate, or, sometimes, nearly orbiculate, unlobed, base attenuate, cuneate, truncate, or cordate, ultimate margins subentire, crenate, crenulate, or crenate-dentate, crenae sometimes prominent and margins appearing ± lobed, apex obtuse, rounded, or truncate, surfaces glabrous or sparsely villous to villous; venation palmate. Inflorescences simple or compound cymes, from terminal bud in rosette, 2-30-flowered, sometimes flowers solitary, bracteate. Flowers: hypanthium 1/2-3/4 adnate medially or distally to ovary, 0.5-1.5 mm free from ovary, greenish or yellow-green; sepals 4, yellow, greenish yellow, green, greenish red, reddish orange, or purple, sometimes purple-spotted; petals absent; nectary disc conspicuous or apparently absent; stamens 2-8, usually 4 or 8; filaments lanceolate to narrowly oblong; ovary 1/2-3/4-inferior, 1-locular, carpels connate 3/4-4/5 their lengths; placentation parietal; styles 2; stigmas 2. Capsules (cuplike after dehiscence), 2-beaked (beaks divergent). Seeds dark brown or reddish brown, ellipsoid, ovoid, or spheroid, smooth. x = 11.

A wide range of chromosome numbers has been reported in Chrysosplenium. M. Nakazawa et al. (1997) and D. E. Soltis et al. (2001b) hypothesized that these numbers arose from an ancestral base of x = 11, with multiple lines of dysploidy (reported as aneuploidy). The historical division of the genus into two major clades--opposite-leaved species and alternate-leaved species--is supported by flavonoid (B. A. Bohm and F. W. Collins 1979) and molecular data (Nakazawa et al.; Soltis et al.). Phylogenetic analyses using the rbcL and matK genes (Nakazawa et al.; Soltis et al.) have provided limited resolution for species-level relationships.

The relationship of the alternate-leaved, North American species to those in Europe and Asia has not been examined in detail. Morphological similarities between the North American species and Eurasian Chrysosplenium alternifolium Linnaeus have caused some authors to treat C. iowense, C. rosendahlii, C. tetrandrum, and C. wrightii as infraspecific taxa of C. alternifolium. Each of them is maintained here as a distinct species pending further studies.



Stamen number can vary among flowers within an inflorescence in some alternate-leaved species (C. O. Rosendahl 1947; J. G. Packer 1963), with lateral flowers sometimes smaller and having fewer stamens than the central flowers. In species usually producing eight stamens, Packer observed that variable stamen numbers resulted from the systematic failure of stamens to develop. Stamens alternating with the styles are suppressed first. In flowers with fewer than four stamens, the stamens alternating with the styles are suppressed. This corresponds with developmental observations made by L.-P. Ronse Decraene et al. (1998) in Chrysosplenium alternifolium Linnaeus.



D. B. O. Savile (1953) demonstrated splash-cup dispersal of seeds in Chrysosplenium americanum, reporting a maximum dispersal distance of 40 cm in the laboratory. R. M. Weber (1979) reported a maximum dispersal distance of 30 cm for C. iowense in the field and 45 cm in the laboratory. Among three Japanese species examined in the field, H. Nakanishi (2002) reported a maximum dispersal distance of 116 cm.

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Fls perfect, regular, perigynous, 4-merous; sep spreading; pet none; stamens 4-8, inserted in the notches of an 8-lobed disk that nearly fills the center of the fl; filaments very short; carpels 2, united below into a unilocular ovary with 2 parietal placentas; styles protruding through the center of the disk, divergently curved; capsule 2-lobed, dehiscent across the top; inconspicuous, branching perennials with small, simple lvs, the fls small, terminal or in small terminal cymes, or appearing axillary by proliferation of the stem. 40, cool reg.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Species within inventory project: Arizona Flora
Chrysosplenium album
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium alternifolium
Media resource of Chrysosplenium alternifolium
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium americanum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium americanum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium beringianum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium beringianum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium carnosum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium carnosum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium davidianum
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium delavayi
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium dubium
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium echinus
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium fauriae
Media resource of Chrysosplenium fauriae
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium fauriei
Media resource of Chrysosplenium fauriei
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium flagelliferum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium flagelliferum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium flaviflorum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium flaviflorum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium giraldianum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium giraldianum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium glechomifolium
Media resource of Chrysosplenium glechomifolium
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium grayanum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium grayanum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium griffithii
Media resource of Chrysosplenium griffithii
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium iowense
Media resource of Chrysosplenium iowense
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium japonicum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium japonicum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium kamtschaticum
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium lanuginosum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium lanuginosum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium macranthum
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium macrophyllum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium macrophyllum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium macrostemon
Media resource of Chrysosplenium macrostemon
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium maximowiczii
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium nepalense
Media resource of Chrysosplenium nepalense
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium nudicaule
Media resource of Chrysosplenium nudicaule
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium oppositifolium
Media resource of Chrysosplenium oppositifolium
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium ovalifolium
Media resource of Chrysosplenium ovalifolium
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium pilosum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium pilosum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium ramosum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium ramosum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium rhabdospermum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium rhabdospermum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium rosendahlii
Media resource of Chrysosplenium rosendahlii
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium sinicum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium sinicum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium tenellum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium tenellum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium tetrandrum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium tetrandrum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium tosaense
Media resource of Chrysosplenium tosaense
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium trichospermum
Media resource of Chrysosplenium trichospermum
Map not
Available
Chrysosplenium wrightii
Media resource of Chrysosplenium wrightii
Map not
Available
Institute for Museum and Library Services KU BI Logo Logo for the Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MG-70-19-0057-19].

EcoFlora is part of the SEINet Portal Network. Learn more here.

Powered by Symbiota.