SAURURUS. 



Then there is S. spinosa, a thorny mound with white blossoms and 

 spines ; £. parnassica, in the same line, but not so hostile ; S. diffusa, 

 clear pink ; 8. montana, S. intermedia, S. ittyrica, in varying shades 

 of mauve ; S. rwpestris, white ; 8. stcnophylla, pink ; with many 

 another — 8. svbdentata, 8. mutica, S. Boissieri, and a variety macrantka 

 of 8. mutica, about a foot and a half in height, a rare giant in the race. 

 S. spicigera has yellow flowers, and S. long i flora, hoary and woody, 

 carri s i specially large long blooms of clear pink. (Seeds or cuttings.) 



Saururus may all be umvgret fully avoided. They are ramping 

 weeds of 2 or 3 feet, leafy, with flopping tails, atop, of mean little 

 whitish flowers hi a spike through later summer. They might take 

 possession of a wild and worthless bog. (America and Japan.) 



Saussurea, a curious little race of high-alpine thistlish flowers, 

 quite dwarf in the stem, and often woolly in the dull dark foliage, with 

 huddled heads of blue, reddish or purple florets, intermingled often 

 with white fluffs. They are not of any startling beauty, and several 

 species often seen in the high stony places of the Alps do not elicit 

 shrieks of joy from climbers trampling them unnoticed ; these are 

 S. depressa, 8. discolor, 8. pygmaea, 8. inacrophylla, and 8. alpina 

 (a rare native on the highest ridges of our Lake Country). They may 

 all be grown in deep and stony soil, with water flowing far beneath. 

 On the Roof of the World, however, Saussurea takes on more interest- 

 ing forms, finding it necessary so elaborately to wrap itself in wool 

 against the awful cold, that at last the strangest of the race, 8. gossypi- 

 phora, making little grey stalagmites along the bleakest limestone 

 ridges at 17,000 feet, has become nothing but a 9-inch sugar-loaf of 

 fluff, looking like a very ancient sodden wasp's-nest congealed in ever- 

 lasting frost, with the flowers lurking far down in the cell-like holes of 

 the mass. Hardly less strange is 8. leucoma, which attains much the 

 same stature in the vast screes about 1000 feet lower ; this has visible 

 and sweet-scented flowers of crimson and blue, huddling at the top 

 of the stem, but from them the specially long thin leaves, feathered 

 into a few fine lobes at the end, weep away earthwards in a dense 

 and widening column, till, as all their long stems are furred with soft 

 white wool, the effect in the end is like the column of some lachrymose- 

 looking ancient Mammillaria, venerable with a drooping fleece of white. 

 8. sacra is close akin to S. gossypiphora, but here the wasps'-nests of 

 wool are pink ; while 8. tridactyla almost repeats S. gossypiplwra, but 

 is more woody and leafy in habit. 8. sorocephala is much smaller, 

 and makes tiny stemless m< undsofwool in the Altai; and among many 

 otto is arc 8. s'ibulata, 8. Stolickzai, S. Yakla, and 8. Saghoo. 



Saxifraga.— This huge race is the backbone of the rock-garden, 



234 



