Bear flower, Alaska boykinia

Saxifraga richardsonii Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 1: 247. 1832; Hemieva richardsonii (Hooker) Rafinesque; Therofon richardsonii (Hooker) Kuntze

Plants: rhizomes proliferating underground. Flowering stems 10-40(-60) cm. Basal leaves: petiole 2.5-10(-22.5) cm; blade usually reniform, shallowly lobed, rarely to 1/2 its length, 2-7(-12) × (3-)5-11(-15) cm, margins 2-3-times dentate. Cauline leaves: stipules (1-)2-5 mm, either expansions of petiole base and fringed with brown hairs, or foliaceous. Inflorescences narrowly cylindric, 3-flowered per primary branch. Pedicels densely stipitate-glandular. Flowers: hypanthium campanulate, free portion (1-)2-3 mm, densely stipitate-glandular; sepals erect, triangular to lanceolate, 3-7 mm, apex acute; petals sometimes with pink veins, ovate to elliptic, 8-12(-15) × 3-7 mm, 2-3(-5) times as long as sepals, base short-clawed, margins plane; nectary deep purple, sometimes greenish; stamens 3.3-5.2 mm; ovary subinferior. Capsules ovoid, turbinate, or urceolate. Seeds brown, smooth. 2n = 36, 84.

Flowering summer. Stream-side gullies, snow-bed grassland and meadows, in open or in partial shade of Salix thickets; 0-1700 m; Yukon; Alaska.

Boykinia richardsonii was originally misidentified as Saxifraga nelsoniana D. Don by W. J. Hooker and G. A. W. Arnott ([1830-]1841); the error was soon rectified. Reports of B. richardsonii from eastern Siberia (P. A. Rydberg 1905; H. G. A. Engler 1930) appear to be erroneous.