Plants invariably have a social history as well as a natural history. Case in point London Pride (Saxifraga x urbium).

 Botanically speaking it is thought to be the hybrid of S. umbrosa from the Pyrenees and S. spathularis which is found in Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Nonetheless S. x urbium came to be known as London Pride. For several centuries or more it has been referred to as a Londoner. 

 How and when it first arrived in the capital is unclear. It is said to have colonised the rubble of the blitz during and after the Second World War but it was here long before that. 

 Common as it was I hardly ever see it in cultivation and I can't recall ever seeing it growing wild. Iain Sinclair once characterised London as a city of disappearances. I think he meant people but the same could be said of S. x urbium though they did at least name a beer after it.  

 The rosettes have a fractal morphology and the pattern spreads outwards as more rosettes form creating a gently spreading ground cover. Masses of pink flowers are held aloft by slender stems in early summer.