Heuchera L.

Herbs (usually evergreen), sometimes stoloniferous; caudex or rhizome stout, often branched, scaly. Flowering stems erect or ascending, leafless or bearing 1-5 cauline leaves (H. alba, H. americana, H. bracteata, H. caroliniana, H. longiflora, H. pubescens), 3-145 cm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular, rarely viscid (H. maxima, H. micrantha, H. parishii, H. parviflora, H. pilosissima). Leaves in basal rosettes and cauline; stipules present; petiole glabrous or stipitate-glandular; blade reniform, orbiculate, ovate, cordate, oblong, or polygonal, palmately 3-9-lobed, base cuneate or cordate to truncate, ultimate margins serrate, dentate, or crenate, ciliate or glandular-ciliate, apex rounded or obtuse to acute to acuminate, apiculate, or mucronate, surfaces glabrous or long or short stipitate-glandular, rarely viscid (H. maxima, H. micrantha, H. parishii, H. parviflora, H. pilosissima); venation palmate. Inflorescences thyrses (with cymose side branches), sometimes diffuse (resembling panicles) or dense (resembling spikes), from axillary buds in rosette, 100-1000-flowered, not secund (secund in H. bracteata, H. hallii, H. parishii, H. pulchella, H. rubescens), bracteate. ( Pedicels bracteolate, glabrous or long or short stipitate-glandular; bracteoles scalelike, scarious or herbaceous, margins ciliate or glandular-ciliate.) Flowers radially or bilaterally symmetric; hypanthium adnate to ovary for proximal 1/4-1/2, free from ovary 0.1-7 mm, abruptly inflated distal to adnation with ovary (H. alba, H. americana, H. caroliniana, H. chlorantha, H. longiflora, H. pubescens, H. richardsonii) or weakly inflated (H. parishii), green, white, cream, yellow, pink, purple, or red, (elongating during flowering and fruit maturation, short to long stipitate-glandular); sepals 5 (6 in H. eastwoodiae), green, white, cream, yellow, pink, purple, or red, often green or red tinged; petals (1-)5(-6 in H. eastwoodiae), sometimes minute or absent (usually absent in H. chlorantha, H. cylindrica, H. eastwoodiae), green, white, cream, pink, or purple; nectary tissue encircling base of styles at junction of ovary and free hypanthium usually white or yellow (yellow to orange in H. parvifolia), usually concealed by free hypanthium and sepals (exposed in H. parvifolia); stamens 5 (6 in H. eastwoodiae), opposite sepals; filaments terete or broader at base; (anthers orange or yellow); ovary 1/2 inferior, carpels completely connate, 1-locular; placentation parietal; styles 2; stigmas 2(-3). Capsules 2-beaked. Seeds dark brown or black, ovoid, ellipsoid, fusiform, or straight on 1 side and convex on other, spiny (smooth in H. parviflora). x = 7.

Can be grown by divisions.