Sweetflower Rockjasmine
Androsace lehmanniana
Primrose family (Primulaceae)
Sweetflower Rockjasmine is a small plant of high elevations with a smell of tropical jasmine. It is easily overlooked due to its diminutive stature. It looks up at the attentive hiker with its yellow eyes. Also known as "Fairy Candelabras," its flower clusters look like candelabras above soft of leaves. The flowers resemble a white forget-me-not whose yellow centers often turn pink as they age.
silky -- Covered with fine soft hairs, with a lustrous sheen. Satiny to the touch.
An umbel is a collection of flowers on short stalks which spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs. The arrangement can vary from being flat-topped to almost spherical.
rosette -- usually a dense cluster of leaves at the base of a plant.
lobe -- A rounded parts of a leaf (or other organ).
A herb is a plant whose stems die back to the ground in the winter.
Bracts are modified leaves associated with a flower.
Involucre is the name given to the circle or spiral collection of bracts around a flower-cluster.
stolon -- A slender modified stem running along the ground, rooting at the tip, and sprouting new plants. Strawberries have stolons. Also called runners.
basal leaves -- a leaf that grows lowest on the stem of a plant.
alpine -- above the tree line. Thin soil, rocks, short growing season, frost, winter snow.
lanceolate -- Lance-shaped. Long, wider in the middle.
A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.