VI.— SAXIFRAGES 



The genus Saxifraga is full to overflowing 

 with the choicest gems of the alpine world, and 

 because of its importance to the rock-gardener, its 

 richness and diversity alike as concerns both species 

 and hybrids, it has been decided to devote a brief 

 chapter to it. To further assist, the indispensables in 

 the case — those that merit cultivation on a lavish 

 scale — are dealt with in sectional groups, so that 

 reference to them will be easy. 



Cushion Saxifrages 



The cushion or crevice-loving Saxifrages — known 

 to botanists and gardeners as the " Kabschia " group — 

 are among the most fascinating of them all, un- 

 equalled for sheer beauty or charm. Miniatures, too, 

 in large degree, wondroiisly prodigal in their flower- 

 ing, and appearing — the earliest of them — long before 

 many other plants have aroused themselves from their 

 winter's sleep, it is small wonder that they captivate 

 the beholder, and that they gather to themselves an 

 ever-increasing host of admirers and friends. The 

 term " cushion " is suggestive of the miniature mound- 

 like habit of growth of some kinds — aretioides, diapen- 

 sioides, and Rocheliana, for example — the term 

 " crevice " constituting a finger-post, not to be ignored 

 by the gardener, of the likes or preferences of not a 

 few. That is to say, the rock-inhabiting kinds in 

 nature are happiest and seen to the best advantage in 

 the carefully prepared fissure or crevice in the arti- 

 ficially constructed rock gafden where, with an almost 

 illimitable depth of pulverised rock, grit, and loam at 



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