Saxifraga marginata Photo by: Amante Darmanin
Tromso botanical garden, Norway.10/07/2017
Origin and Habitat: Saxifraga marginataSN|34668]]SN|34668]] has a fragmented distribution comprising Italy (southern Apennines), the Balkans (former Jugoslavia, Albania, Greece and Bulgaria) and Romania (southern Carpathians).
Altitude range: Between 1100 and 2800 metres above sea level.
Habitat and ecology: This species grows in fissures of limestone cliffs and gorges. Flowering from mid-May to July.
Synonyms:
See all synonyms of Saxifraga marginata
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Accepted name in llifle Database:Saxifraga marginata Sternb.Revis. Saxifrag. Suppl. 1: 1, 1822Synonymy: 9
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Description: Saxifraga marginata is a perennial plants 7-8 cm tall, that spreads by means of buds placed at ground level and with leaves arranged in culumnar or rosette-like flowering and non-flowering shoots. It forms a compact, fairly rigid and silvery cushions surmounted by pretty white flowers with large petals at the beginning of summer. It is a very variable species, but its extreme forms are linked by intermediates. Some of these forms have often been given varietal status.
Shoots: Erect or ascendent all branching from a central root system
Rosettes: Small 1.5-2.5 cm in diameter, very open with wide spathulate leaves 8-12 mm long. The rosettes are tightly packaged and form a not quite flat mat.
Leaves: Basal leaves silvery grey, rigid, strap-shaped, flat or slightly keeled, obtuse but sometimes with very short mucro, glabrous, and more or less edged with limy incrustations, ciliate in the lower half, with smooth scaly margins in the upper half, (2?)4?7(?12) cm long 2?4(?5) mm whide, spathulate, obovate or oblong.
Inflorescences: Flowering stem, bracteate 5-10(-14) cm tall, suberect, brightened with dense red glands and bearing an open cluster (corymbose cyme) of 2?9(?17) flowers.
Flowers: Calyx (4?)6?8(?9) mm long, glandular?pubescent, greenish. Sepals triangular to narrowly triangular, obtuse or acute. Petals (7?)10?15 mm long, spathulate to oblong-spathulate, curving snow-white or (rarely) pale pink
Fruits (capsules): Erect or suberect, well exserted from the calyx.
Seeds: Prolonged elliptical, constricted on both sides, 1-1.2 mm long, 0.4-0.5 mm wide, blackish-brown, slight glistening, papillose tuberculate or only undulate.
Similar species: S. marginata is similar in habit with Saxifraga scardica Griseb. with obviously keeled leaves and acute leaf apex, Saxifraga diapensioides Bellardi with leaves only up to 1.5 mm, widest in the half, and Saxifraga spruneri Boiss. with leaves glandular-pubescent on abaxial side.
Subspecies, varieties, forms and cultivars of plants belonging to the Saxifraga marginata group
- Saxifraga boryi Boiss. & Heldr.: it has shorter leaves and flower stems. Distribution: Greece in the Peleponnese. It is sometimes considered distinct.
- Saxifraga coriophylla Griseb.: has leaves arranged in the rosette in a columnar manner, each 5-7 mm long and spathulate. Flowering stems 4-7 cm long bearing three to five white flowers with petals 7-11 mm long. (extremly narrow-leaved plants of S. marginata var. coriophylla are only hardly distinguished from this species). Distribution: Throughout the Balkans (ex Yugoslavia).
Saxifraga marginata Sternb.- Saxifraga rocheliana Sternb. ex Host: is more compact with 5-10 mm long, slightly recurving oblong-spathulate leaves, shorter flowering stems and slightly smaller flowers. Distribution: Banat (western Romania, northeastern Serbia and southeastern Hungary).
Bibliography: Major references and further lectures
1) Ippolito Pizzetti, Henry Cocker, "Il libro dei fiori", I-Z, Garzanti, 1968
2) André Gonard, "Saxifragacées: Flore pratique adaptée à la France Utilisation des espèces horticoles et ornementales", Université de Saint-Etienne, 2006
3) "Gardener's Chronicle of America", Chronicle Press, 1937
4) Saxifraga marginata in: "Plant Encyclopaedia", The Alpine Garden Society. Web: http://encyclopaedia.alpinegardensociety.net/plants/Saxifraga/marginata
5) Mário Ducho?, Saxifraga marginata Sternb. Botany.CZ. Web:http://botany.cz/en/saxifraga-marginata/
6) Vít Bojnanský, Agáta Fargašová, "Atlas of Seeds and Fruits of Central and East-European Flora: The Carpathian Mountains Region", Springer Science & Business Media, 17 set 2007
Cultivation and Propagation: Saxifraga marginataSN|34668]]SN|34668]] adapts to all types of soil, but prefers limestone, with reduced humus content, in shaded and humid exposure. It blooms profusely and even better in the greenhouse; on the outside it prefers vertical or semi-vertical situations on rocks. It is suitable for use in raised beds or planters.
