(sweetflower rockjasmine)
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Photo of Androsace chamaejasme by Carl Roland
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Androsace chamaejasme (rock jasmine) is a small herb in the primrose family (Primulaceae) that grows in open rocky sites and tundra, with yellow-centered white flowers. Rock jasmine is perennial, growing singly or in loose to dense mats of
basal rosettes arising from
rhizomes, and reaching 2-12 cm tall. Rock jasmine leaves are sessile, strap-like to
oblong, margins
entire, variably hairy and 3-16 mm long. The flowering stalks have no leaves, can be reddish, sparsely or densely hairy, with a cluster of 3-6 flowers at the tip. The
inflorescence is an umbel: many flowers radiating from one point. The
perfect, radially-symmetrical flowers have a constricted
calyx below five rounded-
ovate petals. The petals fused at the base, five-
lobed, white, basally yellow, each lobe 2-5 mm long. Flowers develop into rounded 5-valved
capsules. The fragrant flowers give it the name of rock jasmine although
Androsace is unrelated to true jasmine.
Androsace chamaejasme has long unbranched hairs the somewhat similar
Androsace septentrionalis is an annual or biennial (not perennial) plant that is hairless or possessing short unbranched hairs.
Androsace chamaejasme begins flowering in early to mid-summer.
Rock jasmine is pollinated by syrphids and other Diptera (flies) (
Mosquin 1971). Flowers are bisexual, and likely self-incompatible. The fruits are
capsules. Seeds lack any special adaptations, and are dispersed by gravity and water.
Rock jasmine is an amphi-Beringian species that occurs widely in Eurasia, and in arctic-alpine areas of North America reaching as far south as New Mexico in the Rocky Mountains. In Alaska, this species occurs in suitable habitat throughout the Brooks Range, Arctic coastal plain, Seward Peninsula, Southwest, Alaska Range, Alaska Peninsula, and the Bering Sea Islands. In Denali, rock jasmine occurs throughout the mountains on the north side of Alaska Range. It occurs on the south side near the Yentna River, and the alpine zone in the Chulitna River drainage.
Details are shown in the Plots & Charts found at right, depicting recent Denali data.
This species is found primarily on steep slopes. Besides an occasional mid-elevation specimen, rock jasmine is genuinely an alpine plant, its abundance peaking at above 1100 m. It is more likely to be found on eastern or western aspects than northern or southern slopes.
Details are shown in the Plots & Charts found at right. For more on how to interpret these figures, visit Understanding Data Presented.
Dry sites to moist meadows.