Authors: Nutt.
(syn. P.muscoides bryoides). Cushion-forming, to 5cm high by several times as wide (up to 1m. in the wild). Leaves densely and closely overlapping, broadly awl-shaped, 3.5mm long, cuspidate and thick-margined, with cottony hairs at the base. Flowers solitary, about 1cm across, white, sometimes palest lavender, the petals lanceolate to obovate, lightly to strongly fragrant, spring to early summer. Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada to Colorado and Nebraska, on drying clay to gravel slopes. A very distinctive species with foliage somewhat reminiscent of a Cassiope. Best in the alpine house.
Locklear (2012) treats this as P.muscoides with no subdivisions of the species.
Joint Rock: Joint Rock Awards, Midland Show, 17 April 2010
