SAXIFRAGA. 



S. marginata is the grandest of the truss-flowered Kabschias. It 

 forms tuml led little mats and carpets of lea hery green rounded foliage, 

 shortly strap-shaped, with a very conspicuous edge of limy whit*.; 

 arranged in dense rosettes. The stems, of 2 inches or more, are many 



reddish to a certain extent with glands, and beset with I 

 brad a of the same colour. The flowers are borne in loose heads, and are 

 goodly and ample-petalled, pure brilliant white, recurving at the height 

 of their bloom. It grows with the utmost readiness in open limy places, 

 having the vigour of the carpet-Kabschias, together with the beauty, 

 and more than the beauty, of the choicest. The type varies in size 

 and development, and varietal names have been vainly affixed. In 

 especial, there is no difference between S. marginata and 8. " R 

 liana," which is merely a later and therefore invalid synonym for 

 the earlier name. But 8. corioplujUa is a marked form, being a high- 

 alpine development of 8. marginata, with smaller flowers on stems of 

 an inch, which usually carries only two. The leaves also are much 

 smaller and rounder, packed in tighter, more densely-overla] 

 rosettes, so that their silver margin becomes more conspicuous. It 

 stands out as quite distinct beside typical S. marginata, but there is no 

 abiding character to distinguish them. However, the thing advertised 

 under this name in catalogues, or as S. Bocheliana corioplujUa, is never 

 anything more than some slightly divergent form of 8. marginata. 

 The true S. m. corioplujUa may. however, sometimes be acquired by 

 accident from nurseries, that offer it, or used to, under the name of 

 S. scardica. (S. " Bocheliana " lutea is now being sent out ; this is a 

 plant standing near S. pseudo-Kotscluji, with ragged pale-yellow stars 

 on a fuller spike, in some ways suggestive of 8. marginata.) 



S. Maweana is now a rare treasure. It is a large lax Mossy from 

 Morocco, which has the singular property of seeming to die away in 

 withered strings, and then breaks out triumphantly anew in big tri- 

 lobed, re-lobed leafage of bright soft green, producing characteristic 

 gem-buds. The stems are leafy, and purpled at I sending up 



- out branching showers of some half a dozen or more large white 

 flowers as big as in S. granidata, whose size, not less than the plant's 

 lax habit, distinguish it from the allied S. cuneata, and the gemless 

 S. geranioeides which is like it in shape of leaf. It must have a speci- 

 ally warm and sheltered position if it is to be kept happy for long. 

 Its beauty calls for care, and its habit defies it. 



8. /a' diii is the Western typo of the Eastern European Englerias, 

 that confused and confusing group. It is a limestone species of the 

 Pyrenees, growing with S. arctiocides and freely hybridising in tho 

 rocks at medium elevations. It forms columnar tufts of small oval 



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