SAXIFHAGA. 



with enrichment of peat and Leaf -mould. But it must always be 

 remembered that if the plant appears to avoid and resent too-torrid 

 sunshine, it also resents even moro irredeemably and violently anything 

 like dampness, dankness, or stagnant humidity either of soil or 

 atmosphere. 



8. tlivcrsifolia. — Buyers do not lose much by the inveterate error 

 which sends out, under this name, the best of all forms of 8. Hirculus. 

 For the true S. diversifolia is at once difficult and rather dowdy with 

 its excessive leafage. It is a many -headed mass-forming species of 

 the high Himalayan and Chinese marshes, most variable in size and 

 development, with many named obscure varieties, such as S. Moor- 

 croft iana, S. parnassifolia, &c. The leathery egg-shaped leaves stand 

 up in many tufts on long stalks, and are paler on the under-side, and 

 either smooth or (more often) fringed and hairy and glandular. The 

 stems are some 8 or 10 inches high, often much branching and always 

 much embraced by leaves, whose number and size diminish the effect 

 of the golden stars (which have four minute wartinesses at the base 

 of each petal). Among innumerable developments, however, one 

 stands out as being really desirable. This is S. d. foliata from Yunnan, 

 whose especial beauty lies in the foliage, deep -purple and veined with 

 green, thus admirably enhancing the blossoms. 



8. elatior, Stein =8. Churchilli, Huter, q.v. 



S. x " elegans " (now S. x Irvingii) is the name given to a seedling 

 of S. Burseriana that originated at Kew, and, from cushions exactly 

 similar to the species, produced solitary, rather less wide-awake 

 flowers, in a dim and very pale lilac, flushed from the centre, of 

 curiously washy and indeterminate effect, but obviously of the highest 

 interest, as making a break so wide from the type that it is impossible 

 not to recognise in it the influence of S. lilacina. It grows as readily 

 as its parent, and has already given a secondary cross. (See under 

 S. xkewensis.) 



8. x Elizabethae is one of the most precious of early spring jewels, 

 and of the easiest growth in any open soil and position, where it forms 

 enormous wide mats of thorny foliage, like that of one parent, S. 

 Burseriana, in general aspect (though the mass is far wider and freer) — 

 but in colour of a deep and sombre green inherited from the other, 

 S. sancta, which has also contributed to the flowers, which are in 

 loose heads on glandular pink little stems of 2 inches or so, smaller 

 than in 8. Burseriana, and of a far clearer bright soft yellow than in 

 da, as well as being much rounder and wider and moro beautiful. 

 They Bit almost stemless in their head, and the flower-shoot has long 

 white hairs tipped with microscopic pink glands — two characters that 



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