SAX1FRAGA. 



shining from afar, blood-red among the milk-white masses of their kin, 

 thence to be collected and brought piously homo, to contribute the 

 wine of their fiery blood to a race of rosy hybrids as yet.unthought of. 

 i hrantha is quoted here under its name because, although Halaczy 

 recognises it only as a variety of S. scardica, yet this red variation is 

 so unparalleled among the white-flowered Kabschias, that there 

 seems at least a possibility that it may be itself a hybrid of S. scardica 

 X S. thessalicu, Schott., which grows with it so freely, at least on 

 Scardus, that imported tufts of the one are as likely as not to contain 

 the other. 



S. Escholtzii stands near S. tricuspidata, and is a species of Northern 

 Asia. Than which there is no more at present to say. 



S. x Eudoxiana has leaves and spiny tufts like that of its one parent 

 8. Ferdinandi Coburgi, starry in the rosette and bluish grey, but rather 

 longer, with two pairs of quite conspicuous lime-pits at their edge, as 

 well as the one at the tip. From the cushion spring stems of 2 or 3 

 inches, carrying heads of thin and starry flowers that have sacrificed 

 the shrill violence of S. F. Coburgi s yellow without gaining any 

 advantage from the paler tones of 8. sancta, which has, however, 

 contributed a look of extra-spideriness to the flowers, with their 

 displayed stamina and styles. It is an easy grower and a small neat 

 plant — the reverse cross to 8. Haagii, which is S. sanctaxS. Ferdinandi 

 Coburgi. 



S. exarata, Vill., extends from the Pyrenees to the Balkans — a 

 common high-alpine Mossy, widely diverse, and in the kinship of 

 S. moschata and S. mixta. It is a small massed species, with very 

 prominently nerved leaf-stalks, and the nerves continuing along the 

 three blunt and parallel lobes of the leafage. This would serve to 

 distinguish it from 8. moschata, w r hile from 8. mixta it stands distinct 

 in not having a dense coating of glands. At the same time it is in 

 many ways variable, and a most uncommon plant in cultivation, many 

 other species masquerading under its name ; in all the high Alps it is 

 abundant, making tidy clumps in the moraine-shingles, from which 

 proceed many sturdy little stems of 3 inches or so, bearing several 

 stars of creamy yellow that, in good forms and on well-furnished 

 clumps, often make quite a fine effect. The name of 8. nervosa is 

 at least as common in gardens ; but the true thing is at least as rare as 

 t he true 8. exarata, of which it is merely an aromatic and sticky dwarf 

 form, with narrower leaves, much more deeply cut, very nearly to 

 theii base, into three or five lobes that tend to stand apart ; while the 

 flower-stems bear a profusion of small creamy blossoms on stems of 

 an inch or two. This plant appears to bo the real 8. pentadactylis , 



272 



