C.E.C. Fisch.
Description
Saxifraga tentaculata is a high-alpine cushion saxifrage of the central and eastern Himalaya, recorded from Nepal, Bhutan and south-western China. GBIF holds only 19 occurrences across these three countries, marking it as a narrowly distributed, infrequently collected species of the loftiest screes and rock crevices. It occupies stony moraine, gravelly slopes, glacial debris and damp rock ledges near the upper limit of vascular plant growth, generally above 4500 m. The plant figured here was found in West Nepal at the Kagmara-La at 5850 m in July, an extreme elevation that places it among the highest-growing flowering plants of the region, blooming briefly during the short summer thaw.
The plant forms low, compact tufts or loose mats from a branching caudex, the slender stems clothed with small, fleshy leaves. The leaves are oblong to spathulate and characteristically fringed with long, gland-tipped, tentacle-like cilia along their margins, a feature giving the species its epithet and distinguishing it from related members of the Hirculus group. The flowering stems are short and glandular-hairy, bearing solitary or few yellow, five-petalled flowers; the petals are obovate, often dotted orange near the base, and exceed the lanceolate sepals. The fruit is a small bilobed capsule containing numerous minute seeds.
Saxifraga tentaculata belongs to section Ciliatae (the Himalayan Hirculus alliance), a large and taxonomically complex group centred on the Sino-Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau that has radiated extensively in alpine and subnival habitats. Its glandular marginal cilia are typical of this section. Given its restricted range and remote, high-elevation habitat, populations are naturally small but largely buffered from human disturbance, though climate-driven upward shifts of the snowline pose a longer-term threat to such subnival specialists.
Author: C.E.C. Fisch. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, An Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Saxifrages of the World, Monograph of the Genus Saxifraga