CIX.— THE GOLDEN SAXIFRAGE. 
Chrysosplenium oppositifolium Linne. 
W HEN botanists of to-day can be induced to refer to the early literature of 
their science, they are frequently surprised to find evidences of minute and 
accurate observations made by the herbalists of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries who are too often contumeliously ignored. The mistake is made of 
thinking that, because they were credulous as to the supposed medicinal efficacy of 
many plants which we think destitute of any useful properties, they were incapable 
of many careful observations as to the external structures and habits of plants. 
They were, it is true, ignorant of the sexuality of plants and of the physiological 
significance of stamens and stigmas ; but the careful scrutiny of form and the test 
of taste, resulting from the necessity of discriminating the officinal species, led them 
in many cases to the recognition of affinities which we might have expected to have 
escaped them. 
The name Sedum falustre luteum of Morison, for instance, and, still more, the 
earlier Saxifraga aurea of Dodoens, of which our popular name, Golden Saxifrage, is 
merely a literal translation, implies a really remarkable recognition of affinity, which 
was not forgotten even after the adoption of the name Chrysosplenium, proposed by 
Tabernaemontanus. In the absence of petals one might almost suppose that it was 
the two divergent styles that suggested the affinity with the Saxifrages. While, 
however, Parkinson seems to think that this affinity ought to have been based on the 
possession of lithotritic properties, he seems himself to base it upon the form of the 
leaf. Placing it, as we are placing it here, close to Saxifraga granulata Linne, under 
the name “ Saxifraga aurea. Golden Saxifrage,” and figuring and describing only one 
species, viz. this one with opposite leaves, he writes : — 
“ GoMen Saxifrage is a small low herbe hiving many round leaves lying on the grou id bluntly indented about the edges 
somewhat like the former common Saxifrage, but not hairy, somewhat thicker also and of a darker greene colour, among 
which rise up divers slender and weake stalkes, little above a hand bredth high, with such like leaves on them as grow below 
up to the toppes, where among the leaves come forth very small gold yellow flowers not easily observed, and falling away so 
quickly, that they are so seldome seene with them, and after they are past, there appeare in their places small round heads, 
wherein is contained small round reddish seede : the roote is composed of a number of small strings or fibres : the whole 
plant is almost insipideor without taste, but nothing hot that it may be judged to be effectuall to dissolve or expell the stone. 
“It alwayes groweth in moist places by Well sides, or other standing and sometimes running waters, and sometimes also 
in moorish grounds, as about Tidnaham in the Forrest of Deane, at Ashford and Iden in Rent, at Chepstow in Essex, and in 
divers other places. 
“Itfiowreth in May and sometimes in Aprill, but abideth greene all the rest of the yeare, and perisheth not like the last. 
“ It is called Saxifraga aurea of most Writers, from the forme of the leaves and colour of the flowers, scarce any well 
knowing whereunto better to referre it. . . ." 
The genus Chrysosplenium, named from the Greek gpvaos, chrusos, gold, and 
cnrkTjuLov, splenion, spleenwort, comprises some forty species of small, succulent, 
herbaceous plants, belonging to the North Temperate Zone, of which two are 
British, C. alternifolium Linne and the more abundant C. oppositifolium Linn6. These 
two both occur under very similar conditions and may often be found together. 
They, and most of the other species of the genus, are perennial ; and they are among 
