112 LETTER XXXVI. 



the carpels. Navel-wort has the petals glued together 

 hv their edges into a little drooping bell. Rose-wort has 

 only four petals and eight stamens. Houseleek has from 

 six to twenty sepals and petals, twice as many stamens, 

 and its scales are usually lacerated at the edge. 



A consideration of the last mentioned plants ne- 

 cessarily leads to that of the Saxifrage Trlbe^ of which 

 so many species occur in northern and mountainous 

 countries, occupying the tops of walls, the sides, and 

 even summits of mountains, the depths of wooded din- 

 gles, the sides of trickling streams, and even the re- 

 cesses of the wildest hogs. They are remarkable for 

 the exquisite neatness of their flowers, which are occa- 

 sionally yellow or purple, but more generally snowy 

 white, their pureness of colour being sometimes in- 

 creased rather than destroyed by minute spots of the 

 most clear and delicate crimson. 



London Pride (Robertsonia umbrosa), which, al- 

 though a native of the Yorkshire and Irish mountains, 

 is so patient of smoke and impure air as to have de- 

 rived its name from that circumstance, is one of the com- 

 monest species in cultivation, occurring in cottage gar- 

 dens as frequently as daisies and primroses. You will 

 know it by its round crenelled leaves, which are collected 

 into little green roses, from the centre of which rises a 

 graceful, reddish, branching panicle, the ends of whose 

 slender branches are tipped by the most delicate little 

 star-like flowers of pink and white. Another species 

 (Leiogvne granulata) is common on banks and in 

 hedges in May, peeping up from among grass and 



