SAXIFRAGA pedatifida.
Pedatifid Saxifrage.
DECANDRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. 5-c le ft . Petals 5 . Caps, w ith 2
beaks, 1 c e ll, and m an y seeds.
Spec. Char. R ad ic al leaves kidnej'-shaped, divided
in a pedate manner into seven lo b e s: stem-leaves
palmate or linear. Stem naked below, branched.
Petals linear-obovate.
SrN. S a x ifr a g a p edatifida. Ehrh: Exsicc. n. 15. Sm.
Tr. of Linn. Soc. v. 10 . 3 4 0 .
S . q u in q u e fid a . Donn. Cant. ed. 5 . 1 0 7 .
E h RHART, a very accurate observer of whatever plants
he could procure, first distinguished this species from S. gera-
nioides, with which his countrymen the Swiss seem to have
confounded it, and he gave it the above apt name. Mr.
G. Don, and the late Mr. J. Mackay, both gathered this
plant in the Highlands, the former on the mountains of Clova,
Angusshire. Our figure is unavoidably taken from a cultivated
specimen. This Saxifrage flowers in May, and is, of course,
perennial, forming spreading cushion-like tufts, by means of
its long and branching shoots, being one of the most rambling
of its tribe. The very numerous radical leaves are deeply cut
into three lobes, which vary greatly in breadth, and the side
ones are again lobed in a pedate manner; all are acute, and
somewhat fringed, like their long narrow flat footstalks. The
flowerstalks are a span high, central and solitary, slightly
hairy; naked below; branched and leafy above,, such upper
leaves being some deeply and narrowly palmate, others undivided.
The flowers are numerous and corymbose, but pro-
portionably small. Germen inferior. Calyx hairy, lanceolate.
Petals white, obovate but narrow, their ribs much like those
of S. elongella.