164 
GLEANINGS AND OEIGINAL MEMORANDA. 
Raised in the garden 
growth are wanted than those of parterres. It is a good bee plant^ yielding abundance of honey. Any kind of garden 
soil appears to suit it. There seems to be httle difference between it and the Fagopyrum triangulares except that in the 
latter the branches of the inflorescence are usually in pairs, longer, and more divaricating, while the fruit is said to have 
two of its angles blunt, a circumstance we have not had the opportunity of verifying. Prof. Meisner remarks that the 
hollow stem of this plant is a circumstance ^vithout parallel among Polygonums, but he \vas not then acquainted with 
Fagopyrum triangulares 
— ' ^ 
435. Gaultheiua nummularis. Be CandoUe. {alias G. nummularioides D, Don] alias 
G. rcpens Bhime.) A trailing evergreen greenhouse plant, with wliite flowers^ and reddish purple 
berries. Native of the Himalayas. Belongs to Heathworts. 
of Her Majesty at Prograore. (Eig. 220.) 
This pretty little evergreen trailer was raised by Mr. Ingram in the Royal Gardens at Frog- 
more, whence only we have received it. Natui-ally it inhabits alpine places in India, from Gos- 
sain Than, and Nepal, to Java, for Blume's Gaulthena repens does not appear to be different. 
Dr. Royle, who has figured the plant in his Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains^ 
t. 63, says that it occui's on Gossain Than, and is the only species found by him in the more 
northern portion of the Himalayan Mountains. Mr. Lobb gathered it on the Khasija Hilfs, and sent 
it to Messrs. Veitch. Griffith seems to have seen it on the Bhotan xMountains, near Tassyassy, 
*' on wet banks." Probably it * 
is a greenhouse plant. The 
stems are not thicker than 
pack-thread, are covered with 
brown hairs, and trail upon 
the ground, forming a close 
entangled carpet. The leaves 
are sometimes nearly circular, 
whence its name, or they ac- 
quire an ovate form, and are 
pointed ; at their edges, and 
all over the underside, are scat- 
tered the same kind of stiff 
brown hairs as clothe the stem, (in order to show these, the accompanying figure represents the underside chiefly; the 
upper side is smooth.) The small white flowers grow singly in the axils of the leaves, and are entirely hidden by 
them. They are succeeded by reddish-purple glabrous fruit, growing on very short stalks, hidden by two or three smooth 
brown scarious cucullate bracts. The breadth of the leaves in our wild specimens varies from one quarter to three 
quarters of an inch. We may be censured for taking De CandoUe's specific name N ma miliar Ice, instead of the older one 
of num-mu-la-ri-oi-des, but we prefer the former to such a barbarously constructed uncouth name as the last. 
436. Saxifraga flagellaris. Wi 
{alias S. aspera Bieherstein; alias S. setigcra PursJu) 
A hardy Arctic perennial, with golden yellow flowers. Introduced at Kew. 
F 
Not one of the many expeditions that have gone out to discover a "north-west piwsage," or in search of the many 
brave and excellent officers and men of the Erebus and Terror whose fate is yet unknown to us, but has prosecuted 
reseai'ches in various branches of natural history— botany in particular. The flora of the Arctic regions, consequently, 
is as well known as that of any portion of civilised Europe. Living plants from those regions are always desiderata, for 
our climate, especially m the latitude and in the proximity of London, is very nnsuited to their preservation, and they 
soon perish. A box filled with various growing plants has been collected at Cornwallis Island, and sent to the Royal 
Gardens of Kew, by Capt. N. Penny, commanding the ship Albert, in conjunction with his very intelligent medical 
officer. Dr. Sutherland, and among them this curious and rare Saxifrage in a fiiywcring state. It is drawn and 
lithographed and now published in little more than a month from its being landed in England, in October 1851, The 
present s}^edt% ot Saxifraga inhabits the Caucasian and Altaic Alps, as well as the rocky mountains of North America 
in about lat. 42% to Melville Island in the extreme north and Behring's Straits to the west Closely allied species are 
found in the Himalaya. It has received the appropriate name of the Spider plant from the sailors of our Arctic 
Expeditions. This diminutive plant will, we fear, like most Arctic plants, not last long in cultivation, owing to the 
impracticability of placing it under conditions of climate similai- to those of its native countries. It tliere remains, for 
about ten months of the year, in a dormant state, buried imder snow ; on the melting of which it springs immediately 
into giowth, and, being stimulated by the warmth and continuous light of the sun "during the short Arctic summer, 
comes rapidly to maturity, producing flowers and multiplying by means of viviparous stolons. During tliis short period 
the soil is thawed to a depth of from eighteen inches to two feet, the earth below remaining in a frozen state tliroughout 
the year, showing that vegetable life m the Arctic regions is entirely dependent upon solar influence. Such being the 
