NOTE UPON SAXIFRAGA MUTATA. 



155 



yellow fruits. I have not seen it in flower, but I consider it 

 to be Eugenia lineata. 



There are whole forests of the Melicocca bijuga, or Genepp 

 tree, on the savannahs of the Takutu, in Guiana ; nevertheless 

 I know only of a single tree cultivated in Demerara. It is 

 equally scarce in Barbados ; but abounds in Tortola and St. 

 John. The fruit has a vinous flavour, and if it be from a good 

 tree it is aromatic. Aiton calls it the Honey-berry. 



Branches for grafting Shaddocks should be procured from St. 

 Christopher or St. Kitts ; Oranges from Trinidad or Grenada ; 

 Forbidden Fruit from the Golden Grove Estate in Barbados. 



XXIV. — A Note upon Saxifraga mutata. By the Hon. and 

 Rev. W. Herbert, F.H.S. 



(Communicated July, 1846.) 



At p. 49 in the 1st No. of the Journal of the Horticultural 

 Society I have an account of the finding of the Saxifraga mu- 

 tata on a low mountain near Thun, and its subsequent treat- 

 ment. I was obliged to my kind friend, Mons. C. Fischer, for 

 pointing out that rare plant to me. The two plants of which I 

 had tied up the roots in a ball of moss, placed in the mouth of a 

 pot filled with moss, and set in a pan of water out of doors, in 

 June, 1845, had remained untouched in that situation till both 

 plants began to flower at the commencement of this month, 

 July, 1846. The strongest is seventeen inches high, having a 

 branching spike of flowers with twenty-five branches, each of 

 which has from nine to four flowers, or under. It can thus be 

 cultivated without any difficulty in moss, placed so that it can at 

 all times suck up water. Saxifraga Cotyledon, the beautiful 

 pyramidal Saxifrage, which is not however pyramidal unless tied 

 up, but beautifully waving and almost pendulous, grows on 

 calcareous rocks, where water oozes through their seams, and a 

 little powdered stone has lodged on some little prominence, or 

 has gathered round the plant itself, and generally in a northern 

 aspect, unless the supply of water to the surface of the rock is 

 constant. I find many plants thrive in a ball of moss with a 

 little native soil in the centre of it. 



This plant was figured exactly fifty years ago in the Botanical 

 Magazine from a weak, faded specimen, all the flowers being 

 coloured of the effete dark hue. It is there said that it must be 

 protected from wet and frost. Mine has stood twelve months, 

 and is in fine flower. The strongest plant has about twenty-five 

 or twenty-six compound branchlets of flowers, bearing from nine 



