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Portrait of Purple saxifrage

Nature · Wildflowers & flowers

Purple saxifrage

Native · flowers Feb–Jun · damp basic rocks and screes in the mountains

Saxifraga oppositifolia — Saxifragaceae

Purple saxifrage is a tiny, mat-forming arctic-alpine that is often the first mountain plant to flower each year, sometimes in mid-February with snow still on the crags at Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia. Its solitary, stemless, pink-purple flowers and paired, lime-encrusted leaves cling to damp, base-rich rock in Wales, northern England and Scotland. Globally it is one of the most northerly flowering plants, recorded on Greenland's northern coast.

How to spot them

  • ▸Solitary bell-shaped flowers, pink to purple, about 1 cm across, almost stalkless on the surface of the mat
  • ▸Tiny, tough, blue-green leaves in opposite pairs, packed in four ranks along creeping stems
  • ▸White specks of lime along leaf edges, from glands that shed excess calcium
  • ▸A flat, cushion-like mat on damp limestone and other basic rock ledges and screes
  • ▸Look-alike: opposite-leaved golden saxifrage, a lowland plant of shady streamsides with yellow-green flowers; and thymes and rock-roses which flower much later. The very early purple flowers on a high crag are the tell

How to know it

Mat of tiny paired, lime-flecked leaves bearing almost stalkless purple-pink flowers, opening in February while snow still lies on the crags

Purple saxifrage, Saxifraga oppositifolia.

The Latin name literally means 'rock-breaker with opposite leaves', a nod to its habit of growing in cracks of hard rock

Saxifraga oppositifolia — purple saxifrage.

It sheds surplus lime through tiny leaf glands, leaving pale white specks that help identify it

Purple saxifrage — Cwm Idwal.

Recorded from the north coast of Greenland, it is one of the most northerly flowering plants in the world

Purple saxifrage.

Welsh names include 'tormaen' and 'cyferbynddail', meaning stone-breaker and 'paired leaves'

Purple saxifrage.

In Britain it survives in Eryri, the Brecon Beacons, the Lake District, the Pennines and the Scottish Highlands, at the southern edge of its arctic-alpine range

Purple saxifrage — a glacial relict.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Native arctic-alpine perennial; flowering from February on Snowdonia's crags, and in spring to early summer higher up
  • •Family Saxifragaceae; saxifraga = stone-breaker, oppositifolia = with opposite leaves
  • •Found in Eryri (Cwm Idwal), the Brecon Beacons, the Lake District, the Pennines and the Highlands; it reaches the southern edge of its range in South Wales (Plantlife)
  • •One of the most northerly flowering plants on Earth, with records reaching Greenland's north coast (National Trust)
  • •Sheds excess lime through leaf glands, leaving white specks (National Trust)
  • •Cold-loving and vulnerable to warming; arctic-alpines like it depend on cold, stable conditions
  • •Not protected in law but a priority plant of montane sites such as Cwm Idwal National Nature Reserve
  • •Related rare saxifrages such as tufted, drooping and marsh saxifrage are protected on Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, but the purple saxifrage is not

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