SAXIFRAGA. 



grey leathery leaves, reeurving and overlapping, with a broad rim of 

 limy cartilage. The stems are 3 or 4 inches high, red, and densely 

 clad in glandular red-tipped hairs, that are also thick on all parts of 

 the few-flowered, freely-branching flower-spray. The blossoms are 

 small and pink, hardly emerging from the great crimson-velvet furry 

 bells of the calyx, which in itself is as attractive as any flower. So 

 much so that we may regret the expressive epithet S. calyciflora, 

 Lap., under which it is sometimes sold ; unfortunately Gouan's 

 name of S. media (which seems singularly unmeaning) antedates the 

 other by ten years, and so must stand. In the group its nearest 

 relations seem the plant known as S. Stribnryi, and the other S. 

 Federici-Augusti, of gardens ; it offers no difficulty, but does not like 

 torrid sun, thriving in light limy soil, or moraine, well-drained and in 

 the less baking aspects of the rock-work. 



8. Mertensiana strikes out a new line among the American Bora- 

 philas in being really desirable, no less than of easy culture in reason- 

 ably cool and moist conditions. The basal leaves stand up on long 

 stems, and are dark-green and nearly round, with their edges cut into 

 wedge-shaped lobes ; and in the middle comes up the widely-branching, 

 inflorescence, about 18 inches high, with each spray carrying a white, 

 red-anthered star, and red bulbils below in clusters, till the whole 

 effect is that of a loose generous shower of pink and white blossoms. 

 It is rare, and ought to be quite common. 



S. micrantha is a Himalayan Boraphila. shy in growth, and dowdy 

 in bloom, and altogether unworthy of further notice. 



S. micranthidifolia=S. erosa, Pursh., q.v. 



S. MUesti is a variety of S. ligulata, q.v. 



S. minima. See under S. aeizoon, of which it is a variety. 



S. mixta is a small aromatic high-alpine Mossy, in the kinship, of 

 the value, and for the treatment, of S. exarata. The tidy rosettes are 

 packed with leaves, all incurving while they are young and spreading 

 flat out when older, to show three parallel blunt lobes of varying length, 

 with a broad channel along each, running down mto the broad leaf- 

 stalk. This channel at once distinguishes the species from all forms 

 of S. moschata and S. muscoeides, even if it were not to be known at 

 once by the dense coat of white glandular hair in which the whole plant 

 is clothed. The flowers are of creamy colour, gathered in heads at 

 the top of short stems of an inch or two. It is sometimes offered as 

 8. pubescens (DC.) ; and S. iratiana (Schott) is a denser high-alpine 

 variety, with the leaves sticky and more freely lobed, with stars of 

 clearer white often veined with purple. This in its turn is often sent 

 out as S. groenlandica (Lap.). 



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