NAT. ORDER. — SAXIFRAGES. 
183 
oles, somewhat reniform at the base; lobes obtuse; cauline leaves 
all petiolate ; upper cauline leaves undivided, acute at both ends ; 
peduncles and calyxes clothed with viscid down ; flowers white, 
much larger than those in many of the other species ; petals tripple 
nerved ; nerves simple. It is a native of Mount Baldo, among bro- 
ken rocks, and of the Alps of Corinthia ; also of North America, in 
alpine rivulets on the Rocky Mountains. It flowers in April and 
May. 
Saxifraqa hyponoides. Hypnum Saxifrage. This plant rises on- 
ly from three to eight inches high, gemmiferous ; surculi very long, 
procumbent; radical leaves five or three parted; surculine leaves 
simple, linear, stiff, ciliated, mucronately awned, furnished with 
ovate, acute, buds in the axils; calycine segments triangularly ovate, 
awned ; petals roundish, obovate, white, tripple-nerved, rose-colored 
on the outside at the apex ; nerves simple ; the herb is densely tuft- 
ed before flowering, quite glabrous, but afterwards becoming loose, 
surculose, and villous ; from two to four flowered. This is a native 
of the Alps of Switzerland, Austria, and Pyrenees. In Britain, in 
the north of England, Scotland, and North Wales, in both the Upper 
and Lower Canadas, on high rocky mountains ; as well as on lime- 
stone rocks, walls, and roofs in less elevated situations, abundantly. 
It flowers in April. 
Medical properties and Uses. Linnseus describes the taste of this 
plant to be acrid and pungent, which we have not been able to dis- 
cover ; neither the tubercles of the root, nor the leaves manifest to 
the organs of taste any quality likely to be of medicinal use, and 
therefore, though these species of Saxifrage has been long employed 
as a popular remedy in nephritic and gravelly disorders, yet we do 
not find either from its sensible qualities, or from any published 
instances of its efficacy, that it deserves a place in the Materia 
Medica. 
The superstitious doctrine of Signatures suggested the use of the 
root, which is a good example of what Linnseus has termed radix 
