SAXIFRAGA. 



of its incurable precocity of flower. Whereas S. Stracheyi comes two 

 months later, and may always be known also by the hairy pedicels of 

 the blcssoms ; just as all hybrid Bergenias with fringes of hair to the 

 leaves must have the blood of either S. Stracheyi or S. ligulata. 



S. Stribnryi is a very handsome and large-rosetted Engleria, for the 

 same culture and of the same beauties as the rest. Indeed, it has 

 more than many : for its chief, if not its only, distinction from the 

 variety Federici Augusti, Biasol., of S. media lies in the fact that the 

 big fluffy purple calyx-bells are not carried in even the loosest spire, 

 but on widely-divergent sprays from the 5-, 6-, or 8-inch stems, in lax 

 and ample showers. There are interesting hybrids now between this 

 and the stricter-spired species of the group. 



S. x stricta may also be found in lists as S. crustata hybrida. It is 

 another cross in the race of S. incrustata, with the same lucent and 

 packed rosettes, but built of stiffer and much handsomer, shorter 

 leaves, more sharply beaded, and sending out laterals so freely as soon 

 to form a brilliant carpet. The stems are many, about 5 or 6 inches 

 high, brownish and glandular, generously branched, the branches each 

 carrying but few flowers and often only one, so that the family fault of 

 overcrowding is avoided. The flowers, too, are good, large and ample- 

 petalled, and of a clear cream-white that easily escapes the dowdy tone 

 into which S. aeizoon so often falls. It is the most admirable sample 

 of its group, and was formerly grown at Oxford under the name of 

 S. caesia. 



S. strigosa comes from the Himalaya if it were wanted. Which 

 it is never likely to be, for it is a hairy Boraphila in the kinship of 

 S. stellaris, with a tendency to produce gem-buds in the axils of the 

 leaves on the flower-stem. It is dowdy in appearance, difficult in 

 temper, and tender in constitution. 



S. x Stuartii stands close to S. media, but has bells of clear yellow ; 

 there is also a pink-flowered form. 



S. Sturmiana is a useful niat -forming dwarfish development of 

 8. aeizoon. 



S. subverticillata comes quite close to S. laevis, q.v., but the bright - 

 green leaves are both longer and narrower, seeming to be arranged in 

 whorls along the shoots, and not roughened at their edges. The yellow 

 spider-anthered flowers are much the same, but carried on longer foot- 

 stalks, so as to form a much looser truss. It lives high up in the damp 

 limestone cliffs and caves of Daghestan. 



S. x Suendermannii is a name given to the other extremity of the 

 hybrid produced by S. Burseriana X S. marginata. The type S. X Obri- 

 stii, q.v., resembles S. marginata in habit and aspect ; while this one 



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