470 WILD FLOWEES OP 



dwarf Centauries, with numerous red funnel-shaped 

 blossoms, well contrast with the Gentians, and lowlier 

 still with purple rays and full-blown seed of down, 

 the little Blue Eleabane (JErigeron acris). Proudly 

 seated upon the rifted sands about it, among stiff 

 glaucous sea lyme grass, the beautiful Sea Holly 

 (JEryngium maritiinuni) almost dares the tempest with 

 its armed leaves with coursing veins of azure, vying 

 with the fairest hand. Here, too, the Dewberry creeps 

 with bloomy berries all over the sand hills, amidst stiff 

 prickly shrubs of red dwarf roses (Rosa spinosissima), 

 that display large gooseberry-like fruit ; and in such 

 places I have gathered softly tomentose the Great Sea 

 Stock (Matthiola sinuatd), both in flower and fruit, 

 half covered with the blinding sand pouring along 

 the wind-swept shore. Masses of green verdigris-like 

 Mercury (JMercurialis annua) fringe the margin of 

 the sands and the beach. 



In wild lonely spots, in some parts of the coast of 

 Pembrokeshire and Cornwall, the wild Asparagus 

 (A. qfficinalis), offers a pretty spectacle in fruit 

 though stumbled over, perhaps, ere it can be found, 

 as the fierce sea breeze prostrates it to earth, making 

 every bush and tree shrink also from the sea-girt shore. 



One tree, however, at least, the Tamarisk, seems to 

 rejoice in the vicinity of the raving ocean, blushing 

 into flower with the most elegant varying spikes even 

 as late as October, and a pleasing object with its 

 minute evergreen leaves upon the coast at all times. 

 I have observed the Tamarisk (Tamarix Anglica), in 

 some plenty about the vicinity of Hastings, Sussex, 

 and it is seen at the Lizard, in Cornwall, but is an in- 

 troduced decoration to the scene. 



