184 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
Description of Geum chiloense, the Scarlet Avens, is here represented, 
Plate 86. with flowers about one-third less than the natural size. 
The section through flower (Fig. 1) shows the arrangement of the carpels 
around the conical receptacle, surrounded by the crowd of stamens. 
Fig. 2 shows a solitary carpel with its long erect style. 
SAXIFRAGES 
Natural Order SAXIFRAGER. Genus Sax ifraga 
SAXIFRAGA (Latin, saxi, rocks, and fréyi, to break : many species growing 
among rocks). A genus of great importance to the gardener, nearly 
every one of the one hundred and sixty species being beautiful and suitable 
for cultivation, Mostly perennial, a few annual, herbs. Leaves variable, 
the radical ones frequently forming a rosette from which the flowering 
stems arise; stem-leaves usually alternate. The base of the leaf-stalk 
becomes a sheath, partially enclosing the next newer one. The flowers 
are white or yellow, rarely red or purple; honey producing, and the 
stamens ripening before the pistils. The calyx is tubular, with five lobes. 
Petals five; stamens ten, occasionally five ; ovary two-celled, two-lobed, 
two-styled. Fruit a two-beaked, two-valyed capsule, with many small 
rough seeds. The species are distributed throughout the north temperate — 
and Arctic zones, and in the Andes, Twelve of the species are British. ; 
History. As the British species include Saxifraga wmbrosa, the 
London Pride, which is found wild in the West and South- 
brought out by Messrs. London & Wise, the royal florists, Prior to that 
wa... ie area Pride had belonged to the old-fashioned Sweet 
fave ce nthus barbatus). The earliest foreign species of which we 
meas 1. were S. cotyledon and S. rotundifolia, which reached us prior 
© 1096, the former from the European Alps, and the latter from Austria. 
pet otha are of comparatively recent importation: S. Aizoon, from the 
gi HONEA Bes > from Switzerland in 1752; S. crassifolia, from 
; a i 8. cunerfolia, from Switzerland in 1768; and S. sarmen- 
ost, the well-known Creeping Sailor or Wandering Jew of cottage 
windows, from China in 1771. Our own century has added many species 
