(Saxifraga Virginiensis) Saxifrage family
Flowers - White, small, numerous, perfect, spreading into a loose
panicle. Calyx 5-lobed; 5 petals; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with 2
styles. Scape: 4 to 12 in. high, naked, sticky-hairy. Leaves:
Clustered at the base, rather thick, obovate, toothed,
and
narrowed into spatulate-margined petioles. Fruit: Widely spread,
purplish-brown pods.
Preferred Habitat - Rocky woodlands, hillsides.
Flowering Season - March-May
Distribution - New Brunswick to Georgia, and westward a thousand
miles or more.
Rooted in clefts of rock that, therefore, appears to be broken by
this vigorous plant, the saxifrage shows rosettes of fresh green
leaves in earliest spring, and soon whitens with its blossoms the
most forbidding niches. (Saxum = a rock; frango = 1 break.) At
first a small ball of green buds nestles in the leafy tuffet,
then pushes upward on a bare scape, opening its tiny, white,
five-pointed star flowers as it ascends, until, having reached
the allotted height, it scatters them in spreading clusters that
last a fortnight. Again we see that, however insignificantly
small nectar-bearing flowers may be, they are somehow protected
from crawling pilferers; in this case by the commonly employed
sticky hairs in which ants' feet become ensnared. As the anthers
mature before the stigmas are ready to receive pollen, certainly
the flowers cannot afford to send empty away the benefactors on
whom the perpetuation of their race depends; and must prevent it
even with the most heroic measures.
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