Curtis Botanical – Plate 6640 – Campo's Saxifrage

Original antique black-and-white print from Curtis's Botanical Magazine — Plate 6640.

A Spanish endemic saxifrage named for Francisco de Paula Campos, a 19th-century Spanish botanist. Saxifraga means 'stone-breaker' — these plants wedge into rock crevices and were thought by medieval herbalists to dissolve kidney stones (doctrine of signatures).

Spanish heritage connection.

Uncolored plate. Condition consistent with age of volume. Each print is a unique piece of botanical history, printed on paper aged over a century.

This plate originated with the Royal Horticultural Society and passed through Wheldon & Wesley, one of the great natural history dealers of the 20th century. We came into the archive by accident and have spent the time since trying to share it as widely as we can.