SAXIFRAGACEAE SAXIFRAGE FAMILY 
ROUGH ALUM ROOT 
Heuchera hispida Pursh 
The Saxifrage family is of considerable economic 
importance in that it furnishes the fruits of Currants and 
Gooseberries as well as a number of ornamental shrubs. 
The Rough Alum 
Root is an herbaceous 
plant and does not bear 
edible fruits. It is found Ny, 
on dry barren knolls or Ms 
dry open wooded areas 
from Virginia to western 
Ontario and Kansas, ° 
Idaho and Saskatche- 
wan. It will not likely 
be found in the southern 
end of Illinois but is 
fairly common in cen- 
tral and especially the 
northern part. 
The plant is perennial by an underground 
stem. The upright stem is 2-4 feet tall and 
rough with rather stiff hairs. There are 
several geraniumlike leaves, usually basal, on \ 
long, slender, hairy petioles. Af 
The flowers bloom in May and June. They 
have a greenish tubular calyx which is 5-lobed 
and very much 1-sided, and 5 petals which are small and project 
scarcely beyond the calyx lobes. The 5 stamens usually do not 
extend beyond the calyx. The pistil, with 2 slender styles, ripens 
into a 2-beaked capsule that opens between the beaks. 
The genus Saxifraga of this family is largely and widely repre- 
sented in Illinois by the Swamp Saxifrage, Saxifraga pennsylvanica 
L., and may be distinguished from the Alum Roots or genus 
Heuchera by the fact that its members have white flowers and 
10 stamens instead of 5, and by its pinnately veined leaves. Forbes 
Saxifrage, Saxifraga Forbesii Vasey, is included in Britton & 
Brown with the Swamp Saxifrage, but not so in Gray’s Manual, 
and it may be that the peculiar rock structure and constitution of 
its habitat, the cliffs of Giant City state park at Makanda, ac- 
counts for sufficient divergence in leaves, stamens and follicles to 
make it a separate species. 
