326 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



and fifty species, 1 spread chiefly over the temperate Alpine and frigid 

 regions of the Northern Hemisphere, less frequent in Temperate 

 Asia and in South America, unknown in South Africa, Australia, and 

 the Islands of the Pacific. They are herbs, perennial or more rarely 

 annual. Their habit is very variable, like that of the subterranean 



Saxifraga sarmentosa. 



Fro. 363. 

 Flower (f). 



Fig. 364. 

 Diagram. 



parts, which may be thick rhizomes, or covered with fleshy bulbels 

 as in our S. granulata. Some species are stoloniferous or climbing. 

 The various organs are glabrous, or covered with hairs or glands. 

 The leaves are alternate or opposite, very variable in form, with an 

 often sheathing petiole, but no true stipules. The flowers, white 

 pink or yellow, are rarely solitar}' - , usually in cymes, sometimes uni- 

 lateral, collected into pseudo-corymbs or compound racemes, terminal 

 or more rarely axillary. 



Under the name of Zahlbrucknerc? has been wrongly made a 

 distinct genus for a little Styrian and Carinthian Saxifraga? whose 

 petals, though smaller, resemble the sepals in colour and consistency, 

 while the ovary is in great part inferior ; the very slender herbace- 

 ous stem bears opposite or alternate lobed leaves, and solitary flowers 

 borne on filiform axillary peduncles. 



1 Steenb., Revis. Saxifr., Ratisb. (1810). — 

 Haw., Mmm. Saxifr., Lond. (1821). — Gaud., 

 Fl. Heh\, iii. 83. — Don, in Trans. Linn. Soc, 

 xiii. 341. — Ad. Be., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 2, iii. 

 48, t. 1, fig. 1. — Hook. f. & Thoms., in Journ. 

 Linn. Soc, ii. 60. — A. Geay, Man., ed. 2, 142. — 

 CHAPM., Fl. S. Unit. States, 153.— Geen. & 

 Gode., Fl.de Ft:, i. 637, 661.— Bot. Mag.,t. 



92, 196, 351, 424, 1651, 1661, 2207, 2959, 3026, 

 4915, 5066, 5377.— Walp., Rep., ii. 362, 936 ; 

 v. 824 ; Ann., i. 336 ; ii. 687 ; v. 24 ; vii. 889. 



' 2 Reichb., Fl. Germ. Fxcurs., 551. — Endl., 

 Gen., n. 4633.— B. H., Gen., 636, n. 7. 



3 S.paradoxa Vest, ex Steenb., Rev. Saxifr., 

 22, t. 14.— Engl., loc. cit, 12, 34.— Walp., 

 Rep., ii. 362. 



