DACF Home → Bureaus & Programs → Maine Natural Areas Program → Communities, Plants, and Animals → Rare Plants → Saxifraga cespitosa
Saxifraga cespitosa L.
Tufted Saxifrage
- State Rank: S1
- Global Rank: G5
- State Status: Endangered
Habitat: Rock crevices, cliffs, rocky slopes. [Alpine or subalpine (non-forested, upland)]
Range: Circumboreal. In North America from maritime Canada, south to Maine, across Canada to Alaska, south to California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Aids to Identification: A tufted plant with leaves tightly bundled in small whorls on short stems that grows in small tussocks. Each rosette sends up several flower stalks with a white, 5-petaled flower.
Ecological characteristics: Ledges and terraces of circumneutral rock outcrops and talus slopes.
Phenology: In Maine, flowers in June.
Family: Saxifragaceae
Synonyms: Saxifraga caespitosa L.
Known Distribution in Maine: This rare plant has been documented from a total of 1 town(s) in the following county(ies): Aroostook.
Reason(s) for rarity: At southern limit of its range in eastern North America.
Conservation considerations: The known population is in a small area and subject to the vagaries of small populations like random fluctuations or localized disturbance events.