CVIII --THE MEADOW SAXIFRAGE. 
Saxifraga gramilata Linne. 
L ess sharply defined and less uniform in its adaptations than the Crassulacex^ the 
large Family Saxifragace^e presents many points of structural interest and 
furnishes many favourites of our gardens. It comprises over six hundred species in 
seme seventy genera and these are grouped under seven well-marked Tribes, most 
of which have been treated by some botanists as distinct Families. Though the 
geographical distribution of the Family as a whole must be said to be cosmopolitan, 
it is mostly represented in Temperate or Arctic-alpine Zones, the latter being specially 
the region of the genus Saxifraga from which the Family takes its name. 
Few members of the Family attain the dimensions of shrubs, and those that do 
so belong to Tribes, such as the Ribesioidea^ Escallonioidea^ and Hydrangeoidcie, other 
than that which includes the true Saxifrages. Among these shrubs, the Californian 
Ribes sanguineum Pursh, the Chilian Escallonia rubra Persoon, the Mock Orange 
{Philadelphus coronarius Linne) of Southern Europe, the Hydrangeas, which have 
their headquarters in Northern China, and the Deutzias, belonging mainly to the 
same region, are familiar as hardy plants in our gardens. Of the herbaceous forms 
in the Family, most are perennial, and many of the Arctic-alpine species grow in 
the characteristically xerophytic form of cushions in the “ open,” i.e. uncrowded, 
conditions of such situations. The leaves are generally scattered and the flowers 
perfect and polysymmetric, with their perianths in two differing whorls of five 
leaves each, ten stamens, and from two to five carpels usually united in their basal 
parts. The insertion of the petals and stamens is generally perigynous ; but the 
adhesion of the receptacular tube to the partially united carpels commonly renders 
calyx and ovary reciprocally half-superior and half-inferior. The anthers generally 
mature before the stigmas : the fruit may be dry or succulent ; and the seeds are 
albuminous. 
Although there is no hard and fast line of separation, this diagnosis shows that 
Saxifragaccie differ from Rosacea in the latter Family having generally more than ten 
stamens ; one, five, or more carpels, and exalbuminous seeds. The close approximation 
between the two Families is strikingly shown by the resemblance of the Japanese 
Astilbe japonica Asa Gray to the genus Spiraa^ it being commonly sold under the 
name of Spiraa japonica^ and still more by the alleged origin of the French garden 
plant Astilbe Lemoinei by the hybridism of Astilbe Thunbergii Miquel, a Japanese 
undershrub, and Spiraa astilboides T. Moore, var. floribunda. If this be the true 
parentage of this plant, it is, perhaps, a unique instance of hybridism between 
plants referred to two Families. 
The Tribe Saxifragoidea are all herbs with scattered leaves, and have mostly 
five leaves in each perianth-whorl, and two carpels united below but with two 
divergent styles above. Among the British genera of the Family, Saxifraga^ 
