Authors: Pers.  

Botanical Description

More or less mat-forming, 12-25cm tall in bloom. Leaves oval, unevenly toothed with conspicuous veins, 3-6cm long rosetted. Flowers nodding, in loose whirls on long peduncles, scarlet to 3cm or more long, with conspicuously exserted cream-coloured stamens. Southern Chile, in moist peaty semi-shady habitats at 50-1500m. This striking plant usually proves easy given abundant humus and moisture, and may spread too widely in ideal conditions. O. elegans is almost identical, differing by the clearly lobed and more triangular outlined leaves and more or less glabrous petioles and flower stems. Similar habitats with overlapping ranges. [Pl.318].

a, O. alpina; b, O. coccinea; c, O. macrophylla;