Authors: Arn.  

Botanical Description

Loosely tufted to closely cushion-forming with a creeping woody caudex. Basal leaves rosetted, spathulate to oblanceolate, 1.5-9cm long by 3-15mm wide, ciliate and sometimes hairy on the veins. Flowering stems 5-3 0cm tall with smaller, narrower leaves and one to two branched cymes. Flowers 2-3cm across with white to blush-pink or mauve-purple bifid petals with distinct corona scales and five, or rarely three stigmas; the prominent turbinate to bell-shaped calyx is curly pubescent with ten purplish main veins. Central Peru to Bolivia, Chile and Patagonian Argentina, on rocky slopes, outcrops, soily screes, grassland and open scrub at 1500-5000m. A variable species, only the most dwarf forms being worth growing.