SAXIFRAGA. 



small Aeizoon, with rare delicate spires about 5 inches high, of softly- 

 blushing pale-pink flowers. 



S. turfosa is a new Chinese Hirculus from Yunnan, with typical 

 yellow stars, and rather the habit of S. diversifolia, except that if 

 made happy in a cool and peaty spot it will freely send out runners and 

 so increase on the face of the earth. 



S. x tyrolensis stands so exactly midway between its two parents, 

 S. caesia and S. squarrosa, that it is by no means easy to distinguish it 

 from a laxer specimen of the one or a tighter of the other. It may 

 be seen among them in the cool limestone silt above the Tre Croce di 

 Rimbianco on the way to the Forcella Lungieres. In the garden it 

 hardly grows as well as its parents, and has a slow and grudging habit 

 surprising in a primary cross. So that, as its beauty does no more 

 than compete on even terms with that of its two vigorous and thriving 

 little originals, it is not a treasure to be passionately pursued. 



S. umbellulata belongs to the high alps of Tungu. It forms rosettes, 

 and then sends up leafy stems that vary between 2 inches and 8, with 

 four or five golden flowers in a head, or umbel, on elongate and densely 

 glandular foot-stalks of 2 or 3 inches. 



S. umbrosa. — The London Pride, or Pratting Parnell, or Prince's 

 Feather, has its place only in the wildest, most worthless and outlying 

 corners and rough margins of the rock-garden. It gives also the 

 following varieties, all of varying value for shady places, and often 

 advertised as species : 



S. umb. Aegilops is like a crested monstrous London Pride, with 

 erect narrow leaves, twisted and scalloped and cut. It must be grown 

 in full sun if it is to keep its rather morbid character ; if planted in 

 the shade it soon goes back to S. umb. serratifolia, from which it seems to 

 have sported. In moist places the short flower-stems are almost shaggy. 



8. umb. cuneata has rather narrower foliage than the type, tapering 

 markedly into the leaf -stalk. 



S. umb. Melvillei advances towards S. Geuni, for the leaves are nearly 

 round, and their stalks nearly baro. The flowers have no special 

 distinction. 



S. umb. Ogilvieana is the finest of the larger London Prides. It 

 is an Irish form, characterised by the deep, handsome scalloping of the 

 foliage, which takes specially rich tones in winter ; and gathers into 

 very full and neat rosottes, the long oblong leaves contracting suddenly 

 to their base. This variety is notably free, too, hi flower, and the stems 

 are ruby -red, while glistering brightly in the sun shine the ovaries 

 of the starry pinky blossoms, freckled with darker dots to half way 

 up the petal. 



(1,996) 321 II.— x 



