The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Chrysosplenium

(golden saxifrage), a genus of perennial herbs of the family Saxifragaceae. The leaves are alternate or opposite, petiolate, and entire. The small, green or yellowish flowers are in apical cymose inflorescences surrounded by bracteal leaves. The perianth consists of a four-parted calyx, and the fruit is a capsule.

There are more than 50 species of golden saxifrage, distributed in nontropical regions of the northern hemisphere and in the temperate zone of South America. The USSR has about 25 species, growing in the arctic, forest and alpine mountain zones. The most common species is C. alternifolium, which grows along damp, shady forests, ravines, and the shores of rivers and streams; its seeds are poisonous. C. alternifolium and C. oppositifolium are cultivated as ornamentals.

Mentioned in

Saxifragaceae

References in periodicals archive

The position of Chrysosplenium and a proposed sister relationship

multiseriate trichomes; Chrysosplenium lacks trichomes.

Chrysosplenium and Micranthes are elongate with undulate cell walls,

In this habit they (and other Chrysosplenium) resemble

possible plesiomorphy of Chrysosplenium and Gunnera is the growth of

Systematics and leaf architecture of the Gunneraceae

If so, then unilocular taxa like the tricolpate Gunnera, Chrysosplenium, or the tricolporate Astilbe, may fall near the base of the rosid-hamamelid clade, or the "core eudicots" (sensu Soltis et al., 2003).

Trichome placement: (0) on the margin only; (1) on the lower surface veins and the margin; (2) on veins of both surfaces and margin; (3) on veins of both surfaces, margin, upper surface, and areoles; (4) on the veins and areoles of both surfaces, plus the margin; (5) on the veins, areoles, and sinuses; (6) Gunnera herteri N/A; (7) Trochodendron N/A; (8) Tetracentron N/A; (9) Cercidiphyllum N/A; (A) Aucuba N/A; (B) Disanthus N/A; (C) Ascarina N/A; (D) Hamamelis N/A; (E) Chrysosplenium N/A; (F) Griselinia N/A; (G) on the petiole only; (H) Myrothamnus N/A.

The sources for characters 38 through 47 are as follows: Gunnera (Praglowski, 1970; Jarzen, 1980; Jarzen & Dettmann, 1989), Proserpinaca (Praglowski, 1970); Ascarina (Walker & Walker, 1984), Aucuba (Chao, 1954), Griselinia (Heusser, 1971) Cercidiphyllum, Trochodendrales, Hamamelidaceae (Zavada & Dilcher, 1986; Hufford & Crane, 1989; Endress, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c); Platanus (Kubitzki, 1993a); Lopezia (Patel et al., 1984); Saxifraga (Erdtman, 1966; Ferguson & Webb, 1970); Chrysosplenium (Heusser, 1971; Gupta & Sharma, 1986); Cnestis (Dickison, 1979), Vitaceae (Erdtman, 1966); Myrothamnus (Zavada & Dilcher, 1986; Kubitzki, 1993b; Wanntorp et al., 2004).

Chrysosplenium often has a single flower, but, because some species have compound inflorescences of the corymb type (Ohwi, 1965), we have coded this as basic to the genus, assuming that the solitary flowers are a reduced derivative.

Phylogenetic relationships and evolution in Chrysosplenium (Saxifragaceae) based on matK sequence data.

Systematics and leaf architecture of the Gunneraceae