Rhodiola prainii

Plants to 8 cm tall. Caudex erect, thick, to 2 cm in diam.; old shoots and stems deciduous. Caudex leaves brown to black-brown and scalelike, subulate, narrowly triangular, or broadly linear. Flowering stem simple, erect, to 8 cm. Stem leaves 4, verticillate; pseudopetiole 1-3 cm; leaf blade oblong-elliptic, ovate, broadly ovate, or reniform-orbicular, (1.5-)2-6 × 2.5-4 cm, glabrous or minutely few mammillate, base abruptly narrowed to long attenuate, margin entire, apex rounded or obtuse. Inflorescences simple or few branched, corymbiform, 1-4 cm in diam., 13-18-flowered; peduncle 15-25 mm; bracts sessile or shortly petiolate, linear-lanceolate, broadly elliptic, ovate, or suborbicular, (4-)5-15 × 3-8 mm. Flowers bisexual, unequally 5-merous; pedicel 1.5-2.5 mm. Sepals narrowly triangular-ovate to suboblong-triangular, 2.5-3.5(-4) mm, base ca. 1.5 mm, apex acute to acuminate, tip obtuse. Petals white, pink, or red, oblong-ovate, ovate, or orbicular, 4-6(-7) × 2-3 mm, margin erose or apically minutely dentate. Stamens 10, shorter than petals. Nectar scales obspatulate-oblong, 0.6-1 mm. Carpels lanceolate to ovoid. Styles slender. Fl. Jul, fr. Sep.

Himalaya (Nepal, Sikkim), S. Tibet, Assam.

Xizang [NE India, Nepal, Sikkim].

3600-4600 m

Rocks in broad-leaved forests in valleys, rock crevices at bases of mountains; 2200-4300 m.

Sedum prainii Raymond-Hamet, Bull. Soc. Bot. France 56: 566. 1909; Rhodiola petiolata (Fröderström) S. H. Fu; Sedum petiolatum Fröderström.