Mountain Avens is a spreading undershrub. The flowers are pure white and have about eight petals. The leaves are shaped like oak leaves and are dark green above and white beneath. The fruit is long and feathery. The plant is rare and only grows in rocky places, usually on high ground; in west Clare, however, its main home in Ireland, it comes down almost to sea level. It is occasionally found on limestone through Galway, Leitrim and Sligo, and very sparsely, on Slieve League in Donegal and Binevenagh in Antrim.
Mountain Avens is beautiful enough to be a sought-after rock plant for gardens. The name Dryas was given it because of the striking, oak-like leaves; a Dryad was the nymph of oak woods in the ancient world. Like Spring Gentian, it was found by the Reverend Richard Heaton shortly before 1650; he compared the feathery fruit to that of the Wild Clematis.
The flowers are in bloom in May and June.
Mountain Avens is rare in Britain, locally found on high ground in northern Wales and Teesdale; it grows down to sea level in northern Scotland. It grows in Arctic Europe, and on the higher mountains further south.