158 FLOWERS OF ROCKS, WALLS, ETC. 



upon timber slates or trenchers daubed with clay, and so to set or hang 

 it up in their houses, whereas it remayneth greene a long season, and 

 oTOweth if it be sometimes over sprinckled with water ". And hence 

 the name Midsummer Men. Orpies is a contraction for Orpine, and 

 Orpy leaves were said to be good for wounds. The name Orpine was 

 criven first of all to yellow -ilowered species, hence its origin. In 

 Chaucer's day they called it Ornal. 



Orpine was used as a charm against lightning. With St. John's 

 Wort it was hung over the doorways to scare away witches. Formerly, 

 too, it was employed as a love-charm. 



This plant is astringent, and was used for intestinal disorders. It 

 is also mucilaginous. It is cultivated and highly suited to rockery or 

 rock-gardens, growing to a height of 3 ft. when well grown. 



ESSENTI.\L Si'ECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



113. Scdum Tc/cphiiiiii, L. — Stem tall, erect, green, with red spots, 

 leaves large, ovate, oblong, upper sessile, rounded below, lower narrow 

 below, flowers purple, in a corymbose cyme, dense, ovaries furrowed 

 dorsally. 



Biting Stonecrop (Sedum acre, L. = 5. Dmcci (British plant)) 



Stonecrop is found in the North Temperate Zone in Europe, 

 North Africa, Siberia, but only at the present day. In Great Britain 

 it is absent in Hunts, Cardigan, Mid Perth, Shetlands. It grows in 

 Yorkshire at a height of 1 500 ft. 



Biting Stonecrop, or Wall Pepper, occurs wherever there are suit- 

 able ledges of rock, natural or otherwise. In wild hilly regions it 

 grows on the shelving ledges of steep precipices, covering their angular 

 edges like a green carpet turned golden-yellow in flower. It is also 

 common on walls near villages, &c., being often planted, and on the 

 ground where sandy stretches occur, being rather prevalent near the sea. 



Rather dwarf compared with Orpine, this Stonecrop differs in other 

 ways. It is a straggling plant with a small root, and several prostrate 

 then ascending stems branching from a central one, with thick fleshy, 

 cylindric leaves, egg-shaped, with a spur below, closely overlapping, 

 alternate, swollen, and stalkless or sessile. The leaves are very 

 numerous, and the second Latin name means bitter in reference to 

 their taste, while the first has reference to their squat habit, seated as it 

 were cushion-like on a rock. 



Wall Pepper is distinct, in having yellow flowers, from the purple- 

 and white-flowered Stonecrops. They are in 3-fid cymes, with blunt, 

 swollen sepals, and petals twice as long, and spreading. 



