158 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



grow with great freedom, quickly covering large 

 patches of rock, and veiling all its structure beneath 

 a soft padding of verdure, so that if one has suc- 

 cessfully stored one's garden with divers kinds of 

 saxifrage the day is not far distant when one has to 

 curb their aggressions and relegate somewhat of 

 their exuberant energy to the rubbish-heap. They 

 are ordinarily very freely flowering plants, so that 

 in their flowering season the foliage becomes almost 

 invisible beneath the wealth of blossom. The 

 greater number of the species have their blossoms 

 white or of various tints of yellow from a pale 

 sulphur to a strong, deep colour. In a florist's 

 catalogue before us we see that one hundred and 

 sixty-one species of saxifrage are set forth. In 

 some of these cultivated varieties the foliage is of 

 a delicate silvery-grey. 



Though we have described the saxifrages as 

 being chiefly white or yellow, one of our British 

 species, the S. oppositi folia, has its blossoms 

 purple ; these are large and ordinarily very nume- 

 rous, so that it is an excellent plant to try and intro- 

 duce into one's garden. The whole plant seldom 

 rises more than an inch from its rocky bed, but, 

 loving as it does, the pure mountain air, it is 

 scarcely a plant that under other circumstances we 

 can hope to successfully and permanently rear, as it 

 presently dies away under such conditions as we 

 can only give it. Its true home is amidst Alpine 



