SAXIFRAGA. 



high or so, carrying several yellow flowers intermediate between the 

 parents, but not capable of competing in purity, size, substance, and 

 charm with S. Paulinae or S. Kyrillii. It grows readily enough, 

 however — but no more so than do they all. 



S. purpurascens. — This may be known among the Bergenia 

 Saxifrages by the leaves, smooth and glossy, and without any hairy 

 fringe, with blossoms purple and always nodding, on foot -stalks always 

 hairy. These qualities it also contributes in greater or less measure 

 to all its offspring. It is a really handsome species, and the parent 

 of garden hybrids yet handsomer. In nature a wet-ground plant, it 

 prefers, like so many others of similar tastes, a very sandy soil in 

 cultivation, but is not particularly profuse or free or ample as a rule. 

 The leaves have a lovely gloss, and an edge of red which afterwards 

 overflows the whole surface till it looks like a shining slice of raw 

 liver. The stems are stout and always dark -red, the flowers densely 

 crowded, on hairy pedicels, and of brilliant deep rose-purple — the 

 latest of all in the race to appear. 



S. pyramidalis is a sham name for some specially ample-spired 

 types of S. Cotyledon. It has no separate characters. 



S. ramulosa, from the Central and Western Himalaya, has all the 

 habit and look of S. imbricata, with stems, however, of 5 or 6 inches, 

 carrying white flowers singly or in pairs, on glandular-hairy foot- 

 stalks. The overlapping leaves are smooth and stiff and blunt, and 

 pitted with lime. (Kabschia.) 



S. ranunculifolia. — This, as sent out, always proves to be Roman- 

 zoffia sitchensis, which is not even a Saxifrage at all. The real plant 

 makes a tuft of long-stalked kidney-shaped leaves which are cloven 

 into three wedge-shaped segments, and then these again gashed and 

 lobed ; at the base of each stem is a cluster of stalked naked bulbils, 

 while the species may always at once be recognised by the dilated 

 sheath with which the stalks of the stem-leaves embrace the main 

 trunk. This, in size and habit, recalls S. granulata, but that the 

 white blooms are rather smaller. It needs the culture of S. granulata 

 in a rather cooler and damper spot ; but is very rare indeed in gardens, 

 owing to the persistent imposture of the Romanzoflfia. 



S. recta. See under S. aeizoon. 



S. recurvifolia = S. caesia (a name from the Pyrenees). 



8. x Regelii is the reverse cross to that which has given S. x Hauss- 

 mannii. Here the influence of S. aeizoeides so far prevails over that of 

 S. mutata that its loose tufts of narrow dark-green leaves have quite the 

 look of S. aeizoeides, but that they wear a few faint lime-pits inherited 

 from S. mutata, as well as modified spires of orange-coloured stars after 



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