35. SAXIFRAGACE^. 409 



altitude of 650 or 700 yards. Its usual position runs be- 

 tween 800 and 1000 yards. On the summit of Ben Lawers, 

 it attains 3900 or 4000 feet. 



r^^- ^^'-/^ /^j^i 424. Saxifraga Hirculus, Linn. • 



Area ******** 9 10 11 12 13 14./^* 



South limit in Cheshire and Yorkshire. 



North limit in, or near to, Edinburghshire. 



Estimate of provinces 6. Estimate of counties 7. 



Latitude 53 — 56. Scottish type of distribution. 



Agrarian region. Midagrarian — Superagrarian zones. 



Descends to 100 yards, or less, in Mersey province. 



Ascends to ? 



Range of mean annual temperature 47 — ? 



Native. Uliginal. Notwithstanding so many good bo- 

 tanists have visited and described the localities of this spe- 

 cies, I find myself quite unable even to guess the altitude 

 to which it ascends ; and am uninformed of the probable 

 zone or temperature in which it exists. I once sought 

 the plant on Knutsford Moor (by mistake for Knutsford 

 Heath) and can therefore estimate approximately the al- 

 titude and temperature to which the plant descends, and 

 that is all. A time is now not far distant, when botanists 

 will visit the localities of plants for some purpose higher 

 in the intellectual scale, than that of merely collecting spe- 

 cimens : — a necessary step in science, no doubt; but frivo- 

 lous when made into the end, instead of the means of sci- 

 entific research. Fifty scientific men will learn the facts 

 of nature, simply as facts, for one who will inquire into the 

 relations between facts, or into the adaptations of ihis and 

 that in nature. 



3g 



