SAXIFRAGACE^. 75 



spathulatc in outline, palmately 3- or 5-cleft, or the lowest of all 

 sometimes entire ; lobes strap -shaped, entire ; petioles broad, 

 scarcely exceeding the lamina ; upper leaves wedge-shaped, sessile, 

 3-cleft. Elowers in cymose racemes on the branches of the 

 panicle ; pedicels four or five times as long as the calyx in fruit. 

 Eracts mostly opposite, 2- or 3-cleft or strap-shaped. Calyx-tube 

 three or four times as long as the segments, adnate to the ovary, 

 oval-ovoid in fruit. Petals about twice as long as the calyx- 

 segments. Capsule oval-ovoid, wholly inferior, with 2 very short 

 diverging beaks. Plant pubescent with gland-tipped hairs. 



On wall-tops and in dry sandy places. Common in England ; 

 more rare in Scotland, and there apparently confined to the East 

 coast, where, however, it reaches as far North as Dunrobin, in 

 Sutherland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual or Biennial. Spring. 



Stems i to 7 inches high, slender, simple or nearly so in small 

 specimens, but branched on those above 1 inch high. Pvadical 

 leaves in a rosette, usually decaying shortly after the flowers expand ; 

 lowest leaves i to 1 inch long, the lamina divided into 3 oblong- 

 strapshaped segments, lateral segments forked in the larger leaves. 

 Plowers about xo i^^^h across, white. Calyx-segments very short, 

 obtuse. Pedicels lengthening in fruit until they are i to f inch 

 long, very slender, slightly curved inwards. Capsule ^ inch long. 

 Plant dull-green generally tinged with red ; the stems, peduncles, 

 calyces, and margins of the leaves with short gland-tipped hairs. 



Mue-leaved Saxifrage. 

 French, Saxifrage ^ trois doigts. German, Dreifingeriger Steinbrech. 



This plant is sometimes called Nail-grass ; and Gerarde remarks : " As touching 

 the qualitie hereof we have nothing to set downe onely it hath been taken to heale the 

 disease of the nailes called a whitlow, whereof it tooke his name, as also naile wort." 

 He adds, when summing up the good qualities of the Saxifrages as a family, that they 

 are much used as rennet " in Cheshire where I was borne, and where the best chiese of 

 this lande is made." 



SPECIES XL— S A XI FRAG A RIVULARIS. Linn. 



Plate DLIII. 



Perennial. Barren shoots represented by oblong-ovoid scaly 

 buds at the crown of the rootstock. Stems decumbent, nearly 

 simple. Lowest leaves longly stalked, reniform in outline, pal- 

 mately 5-lobed, cordate at the base ; lobes oval or roundish, obtuse ; 

 petioles slender, many times longer than the lamina ; stem-leaves 



