Pretty little plants, about six inches tall, forming matted clumps of stiff, rather dark green foliage, the twigs crowded with leathery, toothless leaves, bristly along the edges and tipped with a little stiff point. The pretty flowers are about half an inch across, their white petals dotted with dark red or purple towards the tips, sometimes dotted with yellow near the center, with yellow anthers and a pale green ovary, partly inferior. These little plants sometimes cover rocky slopes for long distances with their leafy mats and are common in the mountains at moderate altitudes.
There are several kinds of Muscaria, perennial, matted herbs; leaves alternate, usually three-lobed, mostly from the root; flowers white, single, or a few in terminal clusters; sepals five; petals five, without claws; stamens ten; ovary about one-half inferior.
Tufted Saxifrage
Muscària caespitòsa (Saxifraga)
White
Summer
Northwest, etc.
Pretty little plants, from two to six inches tall, with small leaves, with from three to five lobes or teeth, forming matted patches of pretty foliage, from which spring many slender, slightly hairy flower-stems, with a few bracts or leaves, and bearing one or more pretty flowers, less than half an inch across, with white petals, yellow anthers, and a greenish-yellow ovary. This grows in rocky crevices in the mountains, across the continent, also in arctic and alpine Europe and Siberia.
There are a good many kinds of Lithophragma, perennials, bearing bulblets on their slender rootstocks and sometimes also on the stems; leaves more or less divided, mostly from the root; stipules small; flowers few, in a loose, terminal cluster; sepals five; petals five, white or pink, with claws; stamens ten, short; ovary superior or partly inferior, with three short styles.
Woodland Star
Lithophrágma heterophýlla
White
Spring, summer
California
A little woodland plant, delicate and pretty, with a slender, hairy stem, from nine inches to two feet tall, springing from a pretty cluster of hairy leaves, variable in shape, but usually with three or five lobes. The starry flowers are three-quarters of an inch across, with white petals, prettily slashed. This is sometimes called Star of Bethlehem, but that name belongs to an Ornithogalum, grown in gardens.
Dotted Saxifrage—Leptasea austromontana.
Tufted Saxifrage—Muscaria caespitosa.
Woodland Star—Lithophragma heterophylla.
Youth-on-age
Leptáxis Menzièsii.
(Tolmiea)
Purplish
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.