SAX1FRAGA. 



other. The red-flowered Englerias form a difficult and tangled group, 

 which has too liberally been described and fynonyinised. Pending 

 further researches, it may be sugg< the confusion has largely 



u through S. porophylla, which in South Italy is a divergent type 

 of S. inedia, and in tho Balkans has again been met with and there 

 again described, at least in part, under the name of S. Federici Augusti. 

 But this name was originally given by Biasoleto to the narrow spine- 

 leaved plant otherwise known as S. thessalica (Schott), so that thus 

 we get a confusion between S. porophylla and S. thessalica, these 

 being the two opposite and widely divergent extremes covered by 

 the disastrous doubled name of S. Federici Augusti. Simplifying 

 this lace, then, there would remain two main groups only (with 

 S. Grisebachii as a link) ; S inedia, containing sub-species or varieties, 

 S. porophylla, S. montenegrina, S. Federici Augusti, and possibly 

 S. Stribnyri — all these being of the broad-leaved and loose-racemed 

 habit ; and the other, S. thessalica (Schott.), to include the spine- 

 leaved plant sometimes offered as 8. " porophylla " (and seeming a 

 mere synonym of what is here called S. thessalica) — this type being 

 narrow and spinous in the foliage, with flowers on much shorter 

 pedicels, and borne accordingly in a close spike rather than on more 

 or less open sprays. 



S. x Biasolettu. See under S. x Bertoloni, above. 



8. b'tjlora is a similar fat -leaved and weakly species of the shingle- 

 slopes and beds of shale among the melting snow-patches. It is, as 

 a rule, curiously unattractive. The trailing branches are about 

 6 inches long, set with thick pairs of oval fringed leaves that make 

 the twin or triplet flowers of ragged purplish petals, huddled in the 

 ends of the shoots, seem strangely mean and flimsy in effect, even 

 setting aside the unpleasantness of their unclean madder-rose or 

 dullish-purple colouring (which is often dimmed, too, by the glacial 

 mud in which the plant goes floundering). There is, however, a 

 larger-flowered ampler -pet a lied white form, by some distinguished 

 as a species under the name of S. macropeiala (Kerner), which is 

 more desirable, though rarer. It may be seen at great elevations above 

 tho Mont Cenis. The species has also produced a more brilliant thing 

 in S.xKochii, a hybrid with S. oppositifolia. Tho entire group, to 

 be grown successfully, requires rich muddy soil, with abundance of 

 stone-chips, and water running through the whole mass throughout 

 the whole summer. In such conditions it will readily succeed. 



>S'. x Bilekii is a microscopic and lovely-looking hybrid -Kabschia, 

 obviously owing most of its blood to S. tombeanensis, and worthy, 

 no doubt, of the botanist whose name it bears. At present. 



252 



