(Ser.) Wall. & Sternb.
Description
Saxifraga moorcroftiana is a Himalayan saxifrage distributed through Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and China, with about 281 georeferenced records confirming a wide presence across the high ranges. It is a plant of open, rocky alpine and subalpine ground — stony slopes, cliff ledges, moraine and gravelly meadows — in the zone above and around treeline. The illustrated material from Dzongri in Sikkim, at about 3900 m and flowering in August, reflects the late-summer flowering typical of the species in the moist eastern Himalayan alpine belt, where it grows among rocks kept moist by snow-melt.
The plant is a perennial herb forming tufts or low cushions from a branched rootstock, with rosettes of small, more or less fleshy, oblong to spathulate leaves that may be glandular-hairy and sometimes lime-encrusted along the margins. The flowering stems are erect, often reddish and glandular, bearing a few-flowered cyme or panicle. The flowers are small, with five free sepals, five spreading petals that are pale yellow to greenish-yellow, frequently spotted or flushed with red or orange, and ten stamens. The gynoecium consists of two largely fused carpels, ripening into a bilobed capsule that opens between the beaks to shed numerous minute seeds.
Saxifraga is a large, predominantly arctic-alpine genus, richly developed in the Sino-Himalayan mountains where numerous species occupy specialised rock and screen habitats. The combination is attributed to Wallich and Sternberg, the latter author of an early monograph of the genus. As a widespread component of Himalayan alpine vegetation, S. moorcroftiana is not regarded as threatened, though, like other high-mountain saxifrages, its narrow ecological requirements render local populations sensitive to grazing and to the upward shift of climatic zones.
Author: (Ser.) Wall. & Sternb. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China (Saxifragaceae), Webb & Gornall: Saxifrages of Europe and monographic treatments of Saxifraga