MEADOW SAXIFRAGE 153 



of Parnassus at a distance, when numerous plants grow together in 

 association. It is a pelophilous plant. 



Common enough, this has the habit of a bulbous plant with granu- 

 late tuberous roots. The stems are erect, the lower radical leaves 

 kidney-shaped, with stalked, rounded lobes, scalloped, the leaf-stalks 

 channelled. The stem -leaves are nearly stalkless, divided nearly to 

 the base into 3 or 5 lobes, and the bulbs are downy and reddish. 



Panicles of flowers of this plant have a pearly silvery effect. The 

 petals are white, at right angles, rounded externally, narrowed below. 

 The 10 anther-stalks bear awl-shaped yellow anthers. The seeds are 

 numerous, small, black, in inversely egg-shaped, pale-brown capsules. 



The Meadow Saxifrage is i ft. high. It flowers in May. This 

 plant is a perennial, increasing by division. 



The flowers contain honey, and the anthers mature before the 

 stigmas. The general form of the flower and its chances of self- or 

 cross-pollination are precisely the same as in S. tridactylites (which see). 



The short-beaked capsule opening above causes the numerous 

 seeds to be upset around the parent plant by the jerking caused by the 

 wind or by browsing animals. 



This is a clay-loving plant which subsists on a clay soil, or rarely a 

 sandy loam. 



It is found on many different rock soils of Triassic and Liassic age, 

 as well as on earlier granitic or volcanic rocks. 



The only fungi that infest it are Puccinia saxifrage or C(?oma 

 saxifrage. 



The Yellow-winged Carpet feeds on it. 



The second Latin name has reference to the small granular knobs 

 of the roots or bulbs. 



It is called Billy Button, Cuckoo-flower, Fair Maid of France, First 

 of May, Thirlestane Grass, Lady's Pincushion, Pretty Maids, Sas- 

 sifax, Saxifer, Saxifrage, White Saxifrage, Sen-green, Stonebreak. 

 Pretty Maids refers to the double garden form, which may be: 



"Mary! Mary! quite contrary, 

 How does your garden grow? 

 Cockle shells and silver bells, 

 And pretty maids all of a row." 



The First of May refers to its time of growing. By the Doctrine of 

 Signatures it was formerly used for stone, because the plant growing on 

 rocks was thought to break them. It is cultivated and forms a pretty 

 garden flower, especially when double. 



