SAXIFRAGA. 



such as is set apart for the best Kabsehias, and on the packed shoots 

 spreads out narrow leaves which have the blue look and the point of 

 S. Burseriana, though they are not so long and rather wider, as well as 

 shorter than in S. marginata. The flower-stems are many, stout as 

 in S. marginata, and red as in many forms of S. Burseriana, carrying 

 numerous red-calyxed blossoms after the habit of S. marginata, but 

 here they are still larger and wider, equalling all but the very finest 

 forms of S. Burseriana itself. 



S. odontophylla is no friend to cultivation. It is a beautiful and 

 stately Himalayan representative of S. granulata, with larger leaves 

 on longer stalks, more leathery, and with many blunt 'shallow scallops 

 of picturesque effect. The noble shower of blossoms comes up in 

 autumn, with flowers refulgently white (with red anthers), rather 

 bell-shaped but much wider than in S. granulata, borne on long 

 pedicels in graceful sprays. The plant is rare and impermanent in 

 cultivation ; it should certainty have great care and a choice sheltered 

 place in rich cool soil, perfectly drained. It is probably not particu- 

 larly hardy. 



S. ohjmpica is a Miscopetalum from Scardus, about a foot high or 

 less, differing from S. rotundifolia chiefly in having the stem nearly 

 leafless, and the inflorescence set with red glands. The white flowers, 

 in their loose panicles, are painted with innumerable purple spots, 

 and the leaves, which are not solid in texture nor margined, are cut 

 into much more frequent and acute teeth. (See, however, the note 

 under S. rotundifolia.) 



S. oppositifolia, in all its forms, likes light open soil, with abundance 

 of subterranean water in spring. But it is on the whole a species of 

 generally easy culture, though in rich soils it has a tendency to grow 

 fat and go to sleep. It is very abundant over all the mountain chains 

 throughout Northern Europe and Asia to America, abounding more 

 especially on the primary formations, yet as magnificent in the lime- 

 stone cliffs on the Western faces of Ingleborough and Penyghent as 

 in the high spongy beds of the Cottians, where it makes a solid sheet 

 of purple-rose in the melting of the snow (probably, as with many 

 geologically amphibious species, its calcareous developments are the 

 finest). It is a species infinitely variable, though good varieties are but 

 rarely found in the Alps of the Central and Western chains, where 

 the dominant form is always S. opp. Murithiana, which tends to be 

 looser in the habit and starrier in the more magenta, thinner star. 

 So that, glorious as are the empurpled miles of it on the high ridges 

 of the Alps in early summer, streaming down the dripping rocks of 

 the Nunda in cataracts of colour, or making wide carpets in the water- 



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