Harry Sm.
Description
Saxifraga montanella Harry Sm. is a diminutive alpine perennial of the saxifrage family endemic to the high Himalaya and adjacent China, with GBIF recording 54 occurrences from China (CN), Bhutan (BT), Nepal (NP) and India (IN). It is a plant of stony alpine turf, rock crevices, moraines and damp gravelly slopes at high elevation, and was photographed in West Nepal on the Kagmara-La at 4350 m in July, in the open alpine zone during the brief high-mountain flowering season. The source URL references Saxifraga elliptica, reflecting the close affinity and historical confusion among related Himalayan saxifrages.
The plant is a small tufted or loosely matted herb with short, slender, often reddish stems. The leaves are mostly basal, forming a small rosette, oblong to spathulate or elliptic, entire and somewhat fleshy, with a few reduced cauline leaves. The flowers are small and usually solitary or few in a lax cyme, with five free sepals, five narrow yellow petals that are often spotted, ten stamens and a bicarpellate ovary that is half-inferior to nearly superior. The fruit is a capsule of two divergent, beaked follicles dehiscing to release numerous minute seeds.
Saxifraga is an enormous, taxonomically complex genus centred on the alpine and arctic Northern Hemisphere, and S. montanella belongs to the yellow-flowered Himalayan assemblage allied to section Ciliatae, which has radiated extensively in the Sino-Himalayan high mountains. Like other cushion and rosette saxifrages it is adapted to short growing seasons, intense radiation and freezing nights. Its narrow range and specialised alpine habitat make it potentially sensitive to climate warming, though it is not currently assessed for conservation status.
Author: Harry Sm. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Saxifraga monograph (Gornall; Pan revision of Himalayan Saxifraga sect. Ciliatae)