SAXIFRAGA. 



spire. The thing sometimes Bent out under this name is a variety 

 of S. rotund if olia. 



S. Gritebachii stands as one of the finest of the Englerias, with very 

 handsome and broad rosettes of silver grey, ample, pointed and 

 recurving, edged with silver, and set with red glandular hairs over 

 their hidden surfaces. The close and graceful spike may be 9 inches 

 high or so, white with crystalline long woolly hairs, and dense with 

 many narrow red leaves, green at their tips ; and then hanging out a 

 long spire of small whitish bells in large and brilliant calyces of crimson- 

 scarlet springing from the axils of short red bracts in the same colour, 

 so that the whole effect is that of a long inclining-topped spike of 

 crimson, like some fine and monstrous Ajuga dipped in blood and 

 wine, glistering and translucent in brilliancy against the sun. It is 

 of easy and ready growth in any well-drained open limy soil in full 

 sun, but sufficiently watered in spring. It is now. however, tending 

 to become rare in cultivation, and no opportunity should be lost of 

 multiplying it from its rosettes or saving its abundant seed. In the 

 Balkans it is one of the representatives of the western-European 

 Engleria type, 8. media, and has leaves and leaf-columns as in 

 that species, but very much larger, while in its close long spike it 

 approaches nearer to the other, the spine-leaved type, headed by 

 8. thessalica. 



S. x Gusmusii (S. luteo-rosea, Siindermann, 1912) is a pretty pink- 

 red hybrid between 8. thessalica and S. luteo-viridis. 



8. x Guthrieana, which is like a stunted S.xAndrewsii, is said to 

 be a further cross of S. x Andrewsii on S. aeizoon. It is smaller and 

 neater, but in fat conditions will grow into a form inseparable from 

 Andrewsii, than which, however, it is slower and less certain in 

 cultivation. Even slower and more uncertain yet is its variegated 

 development, with the fleshy rosettes striped with white and yellow 

 and pink in a manner most brilliant and admirable and artificial, not 

 damaged by the loose starry sprays of pearl-pink delicate London 

 Prides. It is most sensitive and morbid, however, and not easy to 

 make happy for long in the open ; whereas for pot-culture in the cool 

 house it is quite admirable, and gives a finer as well as a more appro- 

 priate show than it ever could in the rock-garden. 



8. x Haagii makes loose rosettes of very dark green erect little spiny 

 foliage that clearly shows the influence of 8. sancta. which is more 

 dominant in this cross than the other parent, S. Ferdinandi Gdburgi. 

 .: Lb iluis the reverse cross to S.xEudoxiana, ui.d in H*>'li 

 oasee on their short stems are so starry in outline, 



and so comparatively poor in the thin tone of their yellows, that one 



