SAXIFRAGACE^ 149 



Common in damp places by streams, etc., in the Alps ; 3000-8000 

 feet, and occasionally seen at even 10,000 feet. June to September. 



Distribution. — Carpathians, Eastern, Central, and Western Alps, 

 Southern Jura, Pyrenees, Apennines, Central and Arctic Europe, 

 Ural Mountains, North America. British. It is brought down by 

 streams to rocks on the Ayrshire coast. 



S. atrorubens Bertol. is merely a variety with deep red flowers 

 and leaves with stiff cilia at the margin. It is recorded from Tyrol, 

 and we have seen it in the sand of a mountain torrent near Engelberg 

 in Switzerland and occasionally in Savoy, as above Argentiere. 

 Probably it is by no means rare. 



Saxifraga tenella Wulf. 



Shoots prostrate or erect. Stem with buds in the leaf-axils, 

 ascending, glabrous, branched. Leaves Knear-subulate, cuspidate 

 (or awned), stiffly ciliate or glabrous, with one dot on upper side near 

 the apex. Calyx-teeth cuspidate. Flowers whitish, small. A 

 slender, green plant, 4 inches high. 



Rockyplaces from 3300-6000 feet in Styrian and Julian Alps. July. 



MuscARiA Group 



Most of these are high Alpine plants, but a few descend lower. 

 Saxifraga moschata Wulf. (5. varians Sieb.). 



A most variable and perplexing plant, whose synonymy appears 

 little understood, and has sometimes been confused with S. mus- 

 coides All. It is one of the commonest and most variable of high 

 Alpine Saxifrages. A small, usually hairy-glandular species, 1-4 

 inches high, forming dense and often large tufts. Stem slender, 

 with a few small leaves, and branched at the top into a loose cyme 

 with 2-6 flowers, though sometimes single-flowered. Leaves more 

 or less glabrous, linear, and entire, or more frequently wedge- 

 shaped and 2-3 cleft, nerves showing when dry only. Flowers 

 pale or bright yellow, or rarely purple-brown, with dull yellow 

 anthers, star-shaped. Petals rounded and slightly longer than the 

 sepals. 



Rocks, belts of turf and mould and Alpine pastures from 4000- 

 14,000 feet. (At 4000 feet on the Saleve.) June to August. 



Distribution.- — Eastern, Central, and Western Alps ; Southern 

 Jura, Carpathians, Pyrenees ; Central and Southern Europe, 

 Caucasus, Altai. 



Saxifraga exarata Vill. 



A very viscid, glandular, csspitose species, and variable like the 

 last. Stems slender, with 1-3 small entire or trifid leaves, 4-10 

 flowered. Lower leaves imbricate, in dense tufts, bright green, 

 viscous, strongly nerved, linear-oblong or oblong wedge-shaped, 



