BOTANY WITH BASICS OF HYDROBOTANY (AQUATIC PLANTS OF UKRAINE) - B.Ye. Yakubenko - 2011

X. SEED PLANTS

Family Saxifragaceae

Herbs, shrubs, or small trees. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely opposite, stipules absent. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, rarely unisexual, pentamerous, rarely tetramerous; stamens numerous, sometimes twice as many as the petals. Pistil formed by two to four carpels, more or less connate. Ovary superior, inferior, or semi-inferior, multilocular, with numerous ovules. Fruit a capsule. About 30 genera and nearly 600 species are known, distributed in the cold and temperate Regions of the Northern Hemisphere. In the temperate Zones of the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in high-altitude mountain belts, relatively few species of this family occur. The flora of Ukraine comprises four genera and 18 species of this family.

Yellow marsh saxifrage (Saxifraga hirculus L.). Perennial herbaceous plant, 10-40 cm tall; helophyte (sphagnophyte), entomophilous, autochore (Fig. 130). Shoots creeping, ascending. Stem leafy, leaf arrangement alternate.

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Fig. 130. Yellow marsh saxifrage

Leaves light green, paler beneath, entire, glabrous; lower leaves obovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, obtuse, wedge-shaped and narrowed at the base into a rusty-pubescent petiole; middle and upper leaves sessile, linear-oblong. Flowers one to four at the stem apex.

Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, 10-12 mm in diameter. Perianth double, pentamerous, calyx and corolla distinct and free-petalled. Petals yellow, dotted with orange spots, bearing two conical warts above the base. Stamens five, pistil one, formed by five fused carpels, ovary superior. Floral formula: *K₅C₅A₁₀G₍₅₎. Fruit an elongated capsule. Blooms in July-September.

Grows in eutrophic sedge-hypnum and mesotrophic sedge-sphagnum bogs and peatlands in the southern Polissya and Forest-Steppe regions. The species is under protection and listed in the Red Data Book of Ukraine.