66 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



This pretty plant decks the higher districts of the Welsh and Scotch njountains, 

 as it does the higher Alps, from whence we received it as a precious garden plant long 

 before it was known to be a native of our own land. Its beauty caused it eagerly to 

 be sought after, and it is now regularly sold in Co vent Garden market as an early 

 spring flower. 



Section II.— MICRANTHES. Tausch. 



Acaulescent, with the leaves in a radical rosette, without barren 

 shoots. Scape annual, leafless. Plowers small, generally crowded, 

 in compact cymes. Calyx adhering to the ovary at the base. 



SPECIES II.— S AXIFRAGA NI V A LIS. Linn. 

 Plate DXLI. 



Rootstock unbranched. Leaves all radical, spathulate, with 

 the lamina roundish or oval, crenate or crenate-serrate, ciliated 

 with glandular hairs, contracted into a broad-channelled petiole. 

 Stems erect, simple, naked or very rarely furnished with a single 

 strap-shaped leaf. Elowers few, in capitate few-flowered cymes ; 

 cymes all approximate, or the lowest cyme removed from the 

 otliers. Bracts elliptical or strap-shaped, longer than the pedi- 

 cels. Sepals united halfway up, and adhering for that distance 

 to the ovary ; segments erect, ovate-oblong. Petals half as long 

 again as the sepals, persistent, oblanceolate. Capsule ovate-ovoid, 

 terminating in 2 short beaks. 



On damp alpine rocks, particularly those of mica-slate. Rare. 

 On Snowdon ; llighcap Scar in Westmoreland ; and on the moun- 

 tains of Clova, Eorfarshire ; Breadalbane, Perth ; Aberdeenshire, 

 and the Isle of Skye. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Late Summer. 



Rootstock rather thick, unbranched, terminating in a rosette of 

 leaves. ^ Leaves, including the petiole, -^ to 3 inches long, of which 

 the lamina is :j:to 1 inch (but the substance of the two is so similar 

 that it is difficult to say where the one begins and the other ends) ; 

 crenatures with callous tips. Scapes 2 to 6 inches high, generally 

 solitary, produced from the base of the rosette, clothed with glan- 

 dular articulated hairs, terminated by a compact head of few sub- 

 sessile cymose branches, or more rarely with the lowest branch pro- 

 duced a little way down the stem and stalked. Elowers ^ inch across, 

 white. Sepals often tinged with purplish. Petals with 2 greenish 

 dots towards the base. Pistil dark purple. Leaves sub-coriaceous, 

 rather thick, dull-green, generally red or purple beneath. Plant 



