SAXIFRAGA. 



eer is at its most luxuriant at about 200 feet above the sea ; in the 

 Sohlem Klainm at sonic G000 feet the form remains the same, while 

 far away in the Karawanken, high on the neck of the Hoch Obir 



(where it makes very wide flat masses under the step-like ledges of 

 grass in the steepest places), the form is the compressed, flattened, and 

 diminished Minor variety. There are, of course, many other named 

 developments of the plant. Particularly beautiful is 8. B. speciosa, 

 tight, small, and huddled in the rosettes, which pile up into tight mounds, 

 and emit an astonishing profusion of astonishing fine blossoms on 

 stems of especial redness and brevity ; S. B. major and 8. B. grand iflora 

 are both ample hi the blossom, but not always so free of showing them 

 as they should ; S. B. crenata has the petals deeply nibbled all round 

 their edges instead of merely waved, and looking as if a slug had been 

 at them, reducing them almost to that famous form S. B. sholekobrdtos 

 or herodioeides, which sooner or later occurs in all gardens where slugs 

 are not rare and infrequent cultivators (and could so readily bo 

 dispensed with when their special taste confines itself to the corona of 

 Primula longi flora and the petals of S. Burseriana). All forms, 

 however, sink into insignificance beside the common endemic type of 

 the Southern Dolomites. This, because it lives chiefly in the Prince- 

 bishopric of Trent, has received the name of S. B. iridentina, which 

 name our nurserymen, unlearned hi the Trident me Decrees, failed to 

 understand, and substituted for it the almost unbelievably silly 

 name of tridentata. For no Burseriana Saxifrage by any possible 

 chance could over be tridentate in any sort of way. The form, 

 however, mocks at mistakes, in its supreme and crushing splendour — 

 the largest in the leaf of all, the largest in the rosette, the largest hi 

 the football-like masses, the largest in snow-white flowers, and the 

 most generous of all hi their display. Out of this, too, have issued even 

 better plants still, in S. B. Gloria and 8. B. magna. Of these, S. B. 

 Gloria may briefly be described as the greatest, finest, freest, and 

 grandest of the Burserianas, with tall stems of 3 inches or so, usually 

 more greenish in tono than in most of the others, and occasionally 

 with more than one blossom to the stem ; it is a wonderful grower, 

 constant, unchanging, and indefatigable. S. B. magna, at its best, 

 beats even this, being much neater and dwarfcr, red-stemmed, 

 with flowers borne in unimaginable profusion all over the ample tuft, 

 and of even ampler splendour than those of the last, with rounder and 

 more overlapping petals. This, however, requires good treatment 

 if it is always to be at its highest levels ; and, though quite as easy, 

 has not always the serene and unconquerable triumph of Gloria in 

 the garden, to say nothing of the fact that it blooms some ton days 



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