Chrysosplenium tetrandrum(N.Lund) Th.Fr.

Golden saxifragenorthern golden saxifragenorthern golden-carpet

WFO wfo-0000604110 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Chrysosplenium tetrandrum, photographed by lauralaska66
fig. a lauralaska66, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-04 / obs. 203903390

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 2423024
Filed as
Chrysosplenium tetrandrum (N.Lund) Th.Fr.
Det. by
Shetler, Stanwyn G., (US), NMNH
Collected
R. Sigafoos 1950-07-18
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 27 botanical countries

Regions where Chrysosplenium tetrandrum is native: Kamchatka, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, West Siberia, Yakutiya, Finland, North European Russia, Norway, Svalbard, Sweden, Alaska, Alberta, Aleutian Is., British Columbia, Colorado, Greenland, Idaho, Labrador, Manitoba, Montana, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Québec, Saskatchewan, Washington, Yukon KamchatkaKrasnoyarskMagadanWest SiberiaYakutiyaFinlandNorth European RussiaNorwaySvalbardSwedenAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaColoradoGreenlandIdahoLabradorManitobaMontanaNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutOntarioQuébecSaskatchewanWashingtonYukon
Native distribution of Chrysosplenium tetrandrum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
Aleutian Is. ALU
British Columbia BRC
Colorado COL
Greenland GNL
Idaho IDA
Labrador LAB
Manitoba MAN
Montana MNT
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
Washington WAS
Yukon YUK
Kamchatka KAM ASIA-TEMPERATE
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Magadan MAG
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Finland FIN EUROPE
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Svalbard SVA
Sweden SWE

Not drawn on the map: Aleutian Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 285 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -32.0 °C -20.5 °C -10.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 6.8 °C 16.6 °C 22.2 °C
Annual rainfall 353 mm 597 mm 1,332 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 36 mm 75 mm 186 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 285 research-grade observations of Chrysosplenium tetrandrum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 4 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Chrysosplenium alternifolium f. tetrandrum (N.Lund) Kjellm.
  • Chrysosplenium alternifolium subsp. tetrandrum (N.Lund) Hultén
  • Chrysosplenium alternifolium subsp. tetrandrum (N.Lund) Blytt & O.C.Dahl
  • Chrysosplenium alternifolium var. tetrandrum N.Lund

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.