Authors: Sprague  

Botanical Description

Columnar or flat rosette-forming species 2-8cm high from a stout taproot, the foliage tips downy on the lower surfaces and quite glabrous above. The basal portion of the leathery leaf forms a broad, ovate entire and sheathing pseudopetiole, strongly parallel-veined, 1.5-2 by c.1mm. At its tip are three ferny lobes about 1cm long, each subdivided into numerous minute linear, acute lobes with a gland at the apex. Solitary yellowish flowers l-2cm across on stalks up to 1.5cm are buried in the upper leaves. They have five or six unequal, symmetrical ovate sepals and seven to eight narrowly linear petals, summer in the wild. The females produce numerous hairless achenes with a prominent dorsal vein. Chile and Argentina, in the far south of Andean Patagonia at the extreme limit of vegetation at 1000-1700m This curious little plant is a scree, loose stony feldmark and rock-dwelling specialist of subantarctic conditions. Probably difficult to grow and best in the alpine house.