placed in a better selected compost, and the
specimens can be raised in order to examine their miniature beauties.
The above kinds enjoy a gritty vegetable soil; perfect drainage is
indispensable. These are not among the Saxifrages that are readily
propagated; a few crowns or rosettes with short pieces of stem are not
sure to root, and if more careful division is not carried out, perhaps
but two or three growing bits from a large specimen may be the result,
so lessening instead of increasing the stock. Before cutting let the
roots be washed clear of soil, trace the long roots, and so cut up the
plant that each division will have a share of them. Sometimes a rather
large specimen will have but few of such roots, in which case it will
prove the better and safer plan to make only a corresponding number of
divisions, so making sure of each. A further help to such newly planted
stock is gained by placing small stones about the collars; this keeps
the plants moist and cool during the dry season, when (after flowering)
the divisions should be made.

Flowering period, May and June.

Saxifraga Ceratophylla.

HORN-LEAVED SAXIFRAGE; _Nat. Ord._ SAXIFRAGACEAE.

For the most part, this numerous genus flowers in spring and early
summer, the species now under notice being one of the late bloomers; its
flowers however, like most of the Saxifrages, are small and
insignificant; on the other hand, its foliage, as may be seen by the
illustration (Fig. 83) is highly ornamental. In November, the grand
half-globular tufts of rigid dark green foliage are delicately furnished
with a whitish exudation, which, seen through a magnifying glass,
resembles scales, but seen by the naked eye--and it can be clearly seen
without stooping--it gives the idea of hoar frost. We have here, then,
an interesting and ornamental subject, which, when grown in collections
of considerable variety, proves attractive; and as even after many
degrees of frost, it retains its beauty, and, I may add, its finest
form, it may be confidently recommended as a suitable winter garden
subject. This species proves evergreen in our climate, though a native
of Spain, from which country it was imported about eighty years ago. It
is sometimes called _S. cornutum_, a name quite applicable, and it is
frequently confounded with _S. pentadactylis_ (the Five-fingered-leaved
Saxifrage), which it much resembles, from which, however, it is distinct
in several respects.

[Illus