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CHRYSOSPLENIUM alternifolitim,
Alternate-leaved Golden Saxifrage.
D JE C A N D R I A Digynia,
Gen. Char. Calyx four or five-cleft, coloured. Corolla
none. Capfule with two beaks, one cell, and many
feeds.
Spec. Char. Leaves alternate*
Syn. Chryfofplenium alternifolium. L in n . S p . P I. 569,
H udJ. F I. A n . 179. W ith . B o t. A r r . 404.
Saxifraga aurea foliis pediculis oblongis infidentibus.
. R a il Syn. 158.
T H E favourite fituation of this plant is a black boggy foil
on the margins of little rills in wet fbady woods, where it is,
though rarely, found, intermixed generally with the more common
fpecies of Chryfofplenium, which has oppolite leaves. Both
are confpicuous for their yellow hue, which difcovers them at
a diftance. They flower early in May, and are perennial.
This fpecies is the more ftriking of the two, being rather
the largeft. Its leaves are always alternate, one of them (landing
folitary about the middle of the (tern, which is triangular;
the reft are cluftered, partly about the root, and partly near the
flowers. The terminal or central flower is not fo regularly
five-cleft as to juftify Linnaeus in placing this genus in Decan-
drta inftead of OElandria, according to his principle in Philo-
fbphia Botanica, feEt. 178. Dr. Stokes, therefore, removes it
to the 8th clafs. We retain it in its old place for the convenience
of thofe who ufe Linnaeus’s works, and efpecially on account
of its near affinity to Saxifraga.