Plants annual, solitary, (often reddening with age), not stoloniferous. Leaves basal and cauline, (basal usually withered at flowering, cauline reduced); petiole absent or present, flattened, 2-10[-20] mm; blade spatulate or elliptic to ovate, (2-)3(-5)-lobed apically or unlobed (lobes divergent), 2-10(-23) mm, thin, margins entire, stipitate-glandular, apex obtuse, surfaces ± purple-tipped stipitate-glandular to glabrate. Inflorescences 2-10[-50]-flowered, loose thyrses or cymes, sometimes solitary flowers, 0.5-6 cm, purple-tipped stipitate-glandular; bracts sessile or short-petiolate. Flowers: sepals erect, elliptic to ovate, margins ± stipitate-glandular, surfaces adaxially ± stipitate-glandular; petals white, not spotted, narrowly obovate to oblanceolate, 2.5-3 mm, longer than sepals; ovary 3/4 to completely inferior. 2n = 22 (Europe).

Flowering spring-early summer. Moist rock crevices above beach, sandy or with humus, open sandy headlands, rock walls; 0-100[-1800] m; introduced; B.C.; Europe; sw Asia; n Africa.

Most of the locations for Saxifraga tridactylites in the flora area are from around Victoria.