NAT. ORDER. SAXIFRAGES. 188 



what reniform at the base ; lobes obtuse ; cauline leaves all petiolate ; 

 upper cauline leaves undivided, acute at both ends ; peduncles and 

 calyxes clothed with viscid down ; flowers white, much larger than 

 those in many of the other species ; petals triple nerved ; nerves sim- 

 ple. It is a native of Mount Baldo, among- broken rocks, and of the 

 Alps of Corinthia ; also of North America, in alpine rivulets on the 

 Rocky Mountains. It flowers in April and May. 



Saxifraga hyponoides. Hypnum Saxifrage. This plant rises only 

 from three to eight inches high, gemmiferous ; surculi very long, pro- 

 cumbent ; radical leaves five or three parted ; surculine leaves simple, 

 linear, stifl", ciliated, mucronately awned, furnished with ovate, acute, 

 buds in the axils ; calycine segments triangularly ovate, awned ; pe- 

 tals roundish, obovate, white, triple-nerved, rose-colored on the out- 

 side at the apex ; nei^ves simple ; the herb is densely tufted before 

 flowering, quite glabrous, but afterwards becoming loose, surculose, 

 and villous ; from two to four flowered. This is a native of the Alps 

 of Switzerland, Austria, and Pyrenees. In Britain, in the north of 

 England, Scotland, and North Wales, in both the Upper and Lower 

 Canadas, on high rocky mountains ; as well as on limestone rocks, walls, 

 and roofs in less elevated situations, abundandy. It flowers in April. 



Medical Properties and Uses. Linnaeus describes the taste of this 

 plant to be acrid and pungent, which we have not been able to dis- 

 cover ; neither the turbercles of the root, nor the leaves manifest to 

 the organs of taste any quality likely to be of medicinal use, and there- 

 fore, though these species of Saxifrage have been long employed as a 

 popular remedy in nephritic and gravelly disorders, yet we do not find 

 either from its sensible qualities, or from any published instances of its 

 efficacy, that it deserves a place in the Materia Medica. 



The superstitious doctrine of Signatures suggested the use of the 

 root, which is a good example of what Linnaeus has termed radix 

 granulata. The bulbs or tubercles of such roots answer an important 

 pui-pose in vegetation, by supplying the plants with nourishment and 

 moisture, and thereby enabling ihem to resist the effects of that 



