Heuchera
genus of plants
Heuchera ( HEW-kih-rə or HOY-kih-rə) is a genus of largely evergreen perennial plants in the family Saxifragaceae. All species are native to North America except for Heuchera sichotensis, native to the Russian Far East. Common names include alumroot and coral bells.
Description
Heuchera have palmately lobed leaves on long petioles, and a thick, woody rootstock. The genus was named after Johann Heinrich von Heucher (1677–1746), an 18th-century German physician, and Professor at Wittenberg University. There are approximately 37 species, but the taxonomy of the genus is difficult because the species often intergrade with one another, hybridization is common, and the flowers change markedly in proportion as they develop.
Distribution and habitat
Alumroot species grow in varied habitats, so some species look quite different from one another, and have varying preferences regarding temperature, soil, and other natural factors. H. maxima is found on the Channel Islands of California, where it grows on rocky, windy, saline-washed ocean shores, and H. sanguinea, called coral bells because of its cerise flowers, can be found in the warm, dry canyons of Mexico and adjacent New Mexico and Arizona. In the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, the plants grow best in shade.
Several alumroots and their crosses are used as ornamental plants.
The public source identifies “Heuchera” as genus of plants. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Heuchera, genus and plants.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q972663. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1677 and 1746.
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This entry incorporates text from “Heuchera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.