358 WILD FLOWERS. 



touching the qualitie hereof we have nothing to set 

 downe, onely it hath been taken to heale the disease 

 of the nailes called a whitlow, whereof it tooke his 

 name, as also naile-wort." But then he adds, 

 triumphantly, that the saxifrages, and especially 

 that which he calls 8. anglicdna, are much used as 

 rennet " in Cheshire where I was borne, where the 

 best chiese of this lande is made." 



The saxifrages of Britain are divided into four 

 different classes. The first, which has the calyx 

 reflexed and inferior, and the flowers in panicles, 

 boasts amongst its numbers the London -pride, 

 justly named " none-so-pretty" (8. umbrosa), or the 

 " St. Patrick's cabbage " of the Irish, the pride of our 

 childish gardens ; and the kidney-leaved (8. geum), 

 which occurs on mountains in the south of Ireland. 

 It also includes the hairy (8. hirsuta), which though 

 very distinct in its appearance, is most probably a 

 hybrid between the kidney-leaved-saxifrage and the 

 London-pride, which occurs in the gap of Dunloe, in 

 the vicinity of Killarney ; and the starry-saxifrage 

 (8. stelldns) which abounds by the sides of rocky 

 streamlets in mountainous districts in Scotland, and 

 the north of England and Ireland. 



The second division has but one British species, 

 the clustered Alpine (8. nivalis), which grows in the 

 rocky mountain clefts of Wales and Ireland. It 

 has its calyx spreading and half superior, and a 

 scape with a spreading head of flowers. 



Among those saxifrages which have the calyx 

 partly, or entirely, inferior, the stem leafy, and the 

 leaves undivided, which form the third class, is the 



