Partridgefoot carpets the high country in bright green mats. Each tuft of leaves is wedge-shaped but split into narrow lobes, which reminded someone of the toes of a game bird and gave the plant its common name. The mats are linked by woody runners at or just under the surface, so one plant can spread across a wide patch of ground.
In summer, leafy stems four to six inches tall rise from the mat, each tipped with a dense, fuzzy spike of small white flowers. Up close each flower looks like a tiny rose with a crowd of stamens, and partridgefoot is indeed a member of the rose family, though botanists first took it for a saxifrage. It is the only species in its genus, named for Count Luetke, a Russian sea captain who charted the Alaska coast in the early 1800s.
Partridgefoot is built for places where deep snowbanks melt out late in the season. There the summer can be too short to flower and ripen seed every year, so spreading by runners keeps it going. Look for it on moist, sandy or gravelly ground in subalpine and alpine meadows, especially around lingering snowfields near and above timberline on Mt. Hood.
How to identify it
Forms low, bright green mats. Leaves crowd in thick tufts, each blade under half an inch long and divided twice into narrow, three-part lobes. Upright flowering stems 4 to 6 inches tall end in a dense, elongated cluster of small white five-petaled flowers with many stamens.
Habitat
Subalpine and alpine slopes and meadows, usually on sandy ground that stays moist or shaded, and especially where snowbanks linger into summer. Its range runs from Alaska south through the Cascades to northern California.
Sightings in the forest
368 research-grade sightings in Mt. Hood National Forest on iNaturalist, most recently on October 9, 2026. See them on iNaturalist →