situation, on the artificial rock-work of the garden, 
to which its diminutive size renders it peculiarly well 
suited. Indeed this sort of wild appendage to the 
Botanist’s domains, should never exhibit any but 
the most dwarf and humble vegetable subjects. 
On the propriety of such formations we may add 
a few remarks. The adoption of these rugged 
features is intended to diversify the otherwise tame 
and general smoothness of the flower garden ; for 
conveniently filling up shady and useless corners ; 
or, for what is far better still, the improved or more 
natural cultivation of our desert beauties. In either 
case, their introduction might be perfectly consistent 
with good taste, but would not the term Lapideum, 
or Alpine Border, prove a more consistent title than 
Rock- Work ? This latter epithet conveys an idea 
which can rarely be realized by art. On the mere 
mention of it, the mind immediately recurs to those 
magnificent diluvian spectacles — the natural and 
craggy rocks that bound the ocean or flowing rivers 
— those sports of the deluge, left as a sample of its 
power and its universality; and when such works 
as these present themselves to the imagination, all 
will allow how very much, by comparison, is lost to 
our grandest artificial assemblage of stones. Were 
we to follow the idea suggested by the name saxi- 
fraga, a place full of stones might, though less har- 
moniously, be called a saxetium. 
Early in every spring, this species should be 
carefully divided, and planted, either in small pots 
or on a shady alpine border. A mixture of fresh 
loam, peat, and a small portion of old mortar, finely 
sifted, will form for it a suitable compost. 
Hort. Kew. 2, v. 3, 68. 
