80 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SPECIES (?) XV.— SAXIFRAGA DECIPIENS. Ehrh. 



Plate DLVII. 



S. csespitosa, Kocli, Syn. Fl, Germ, et Ilelv. ed. ii. p. 301, et Auct. Angl. Sm. Eng. 



Bot. No. 794, and S. palmata, Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 455. 

 S. pubescens, Sternh. Roth, Emim. pars i. Sect. post. p. 256. 



Barren shoots short, terminating in rosettes, and, together 

 with those at the base of the flowering-shoots, forming dense 

 cushions. Leaves of the rosettes wedge-shaped, attenuated into 

 winged petioles ; lamina dilated, 3- to 7-cleft, with oblong abrujitly 

 acuminated lobes, blunt at the apex; those on the flowering- 

 stem few, similar to those of the rosettes. Bracts linear, entire, 

 strapshaped. Plowering - stems terminating in a few - flowered 

 corymbose cyme. Calyx-segments ovate, blunt, as long as the 

 calyx-tube; calyx-tube in fruit hemispherical, about as broad as 

 long. Petals obovate, 2J to 3 times as long as the calyx-segments. 

 Capsule half superior. Stems, pedicels, and calyces clothed with 

 short gland-tipped hairs, intermixed with a few jointed ones ; 

 petioles with much longer shaggy, jointed, glandular hairs. 



On Alpine rocks. On Cwm Idwell and Twll Dhu, Carnarvon- 

 shire, North Wales, probably also on the mountains of Kerry ; but 

 I have seen no native specimens except those from Wales in Smith's 

 Herbarium. 



England, Ireland ? Perennial. Summer. 



Very like S. csespitosa, and sometimes as small, but the floAver- 

 ing stems occasionally attain the height of 9 or 10 inches. 

 Leaves with the lobes more divergent, less perfectly parallel-sided. 

 Calyx-tube rather shorter in proportion in flower, and much 

 shorter in fruit, so that a less portion of the capsule is adherent to 

 the calyx-tube. The pubescence, especially on the leaves, has the 

 hairs longer and much more distinctly divided by cross partitions 

 into numerous joints, and the foliage is of a lighter colour, but it is 

 only in fruit that the difference between the two plants is very 

 conspicuous. 



Dr. Walker Arnott (Brit. PI. ed. viii. p. 163) points out the 

 difference between the S. csespitosa of British authors and the Arctic 

 plant ; but he appears to have seen no British specimen of the latter. 



I am strongly inclined to consider S. decipiens merely a sub- 

 species of S. hypnoides, from which it differs only in the leaf-lobes 

 and calyx-segments being blunt, and the plant of a paler (slightly 

 glaucous) green. 



Falmate-leaved Mossy Saxifrage. 



