SAXIFRAGA. 



valueless. For though to live by a glacier (and even this is not a 

 habit of the Robert sonias) is certainly not necessarily a certificate of 

 merit, yet old and frequent associations lead a gardener to connect 

 the name with choiceness and delicacy, if not with positive loveliness. 



S. glabella makes tight cushions in damp and shady rocks at the 

 snow-level and up to the summit of the Thessalian Olympus (and in 

 the Alps of Naples). It is a pretty packed Mossy with firm little dense 

 rosettes of outcurled leaves bluntly obovate and slightly cloven below, 

 while the upper ones are fleshy and undivided. The flowers are white, 

 on minutely glandular- pedicels, and have five nerves to the obovate 

 petals. It will require the treatment of S. androsacea, to which it 

 stands in very close relationship. 



S. globulifera is a Mossy, forming mats of foliage, on which, in 

 resting-time, lies a profusion of gem-buds clothed in oblong dusky 

 leaves, shortly fringed, but without any investment of hairs. It 

 may always be known among the other gem-bearers by its lower 

 leaves, which have definite, often long, leaf -stalks, and are themselves 

 tri-cleft with the lobes again cut into blunt segments. The flowers are 

 white and minute, half a dozen or so on the abundant small stems 

 of 4 or 5 inches. It is sometimes sent out as 8. granatensis, and 

 is of quite easy culture. There is also a variety 8. g. gibraltarica, 

 larger and stouter, with firmer, narrower leaf-lobes, ending in a bristle. 

 It is no less easy and hardy than the type, and in gardens is the plant 

 that usually does duty for 8. conifera. Finally, Oran sends us a larger- 

 petalled form with leaves less cloven, under the name of 8. g. oranensis. 



S. x Godseffiana or 8. " I. c. Godseff" or 8. x " sancta speciosa " is a 

 beautiful hybrid between 8. sancta and S. Burseriana speciosa, ranking 

 very high among the yellow Burserianas, for it is perfectly free in 

 growth, attractive with its grey green spiny shoots, and perfectly free 

 with goodly clear lemon-coloured flowers in loose heads on short 

 crimsoned stems in early spring. 



S. granatensis. See under 8. globulifera. 



8. granulata. — The Fair Maids of France is commoner in gardens 

 in its double form than in its lovelier wild one, with the big gracious 

 single flowers of snowy white inclining in a loose rare shower on stems 

 of 6 or 10 inches, above tufts of stalked kidnoy-shaped leaves, dark 

 and thick, with naked bulbils taking shelter at their base. It is a 

 delicate sight in the alpine meadows of Teesdale, and of the easiest 

 culture anywhere. There are two varieties, both unknown in culti- 

 vation. The one is S. g. glaucescens, slenderer, with smaller leaves 

 and less evident hairs and with no bracts to the branches. The other 

 is S. g. graeca, densely glandular, with the flowers gathered in a close 



279 



