MILKWORT 69 



of grass. In the hollows and moist places on the heaths a strong- 

 aroma is scattered by Pennyroyal. Creeping- Willow, like the Heath 

 and Ling, spreads far and wide. Wood-rush sometimes strays here 

 from the woods. All over the moors and heaths the nodding heads of 

 the Meadow Rush wave in the vernal breeze. Here the skylark is 

 singing overhead, the sky is blue or grey, and all conspires to raise the 

 .soul to the tune of Heaven's high caroller. The early Sedge, with its 

 scent of musk, and green-ribbed Sedge, Small Bent Grass, Heath Hair 

 Grass, all wa\e their slender, graceful panicles backwards and forwards 

 with the infinite rhythm of the wind, and here and there den.se tufts are 

 formed by the Matweed. 



Milkwort (I'olygala vulgaris, L.) 



Milkwort has never been found fossil. To-day it is met with in the 

 Temperate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, North Africa, Siberia, 

 Western Asia. It is absent in Great Britain from North Devon, South 

 W^ilts, South Hants, Esse.x, Herts, Bedford, Stafford, Salop. In South 

 Wales it is found only in Glamorgan and Brecon; in North Wales only 

 in Carnarvon and Anglesey; in the Mersey province it is absent from 

 Mid Lanes; it occurs in Durham; in the West Lowlands not in Ren- 

 frew or Lanark; in the East Highlands it is found only in Mid Perth, 

 Forfar, South Aberdeen; in the West Highlands it does not occur in 

 the Clyde Isles, Cantire, and not in the Orkneys. It ascends to 3000 ft. 

 in the Highlands. 



The Common Milkwort is a plant of the meadows and heaths, and 

 always thrives best on high or rising ground; and though in the moist 

 meadows of more lowland pastures laid to grass it luxuriates in a moist 

 habitat along with Heath Bedstraw, Furze, and Broom, and the Hare- 

 bell, yet as a rule it prefers, as do the majority of ericetal species, a dry 

 atmosphere, even stony surfaces, and there it is undoubtedly xero- 

 philous, or adapted to drought. 



Milkwort has a trailing habit, very similar to the Rockrose, having 

 numerous simple, unbranched stems, which are semi-erect, not ligneous 

 or woody, as in the Rockrose. The leaves are distant, linear-Iance- 

 shaped, acute, the lower more oblong. It is thus a wiry plant with a 

 .semi-erect habit. 



The flowers are deep-blue or pink, in terminal racemes, with sepals 

 with branching veins and wings nearly as long as the corolla. The 

 capsules are inversely heart-shaped and notched, the lobes Ix'ing equal, 

 the seeds with arils. 



