Flowers, ? inch across, of 5 bright purplish-red petals, notched at the end, spread from the top of a tubular calyx so that the whole flower forms a tiny salver. Stems and leaves are so dwarfed and tightly grouped as to give the appearance of a cushion of green moss 3 to 8 inches across, studded with little reddish stars. Grows in alpine rocky areas extending to peak summits. Blooms late June-early July.

This is one of the alpine flowers we share with all the alpine and arctic lands of the Northern Hemisphere. High mountain ridges are its home here, and if we travel north we keep finding it at progressively lower elevations until it reaches the low barren lands of the arctic. Always it is where winds are cold and climate is too rough for trees. You might take it for a pad of green moss if it were not for its red flowers, often in the form of a circlet near the plant’s edge. Close examination shows a full-fledged plant, however, with leaves, stems and a stout tap-root well buried in what soil there is below and around the rock it presses against. Another member of the pink family that grows as a mat against our timberline rocks is sandwort, Arenaria sajanensis. Its flowers are white, and the plant less densely compacted. Related to both of these alpine pinks are the numerous chickweeds of foothills and mountains. They have low slender stems and their petals are white and deeply notched at the end.