80 PLUMBAGINE^ 



1. Thrift Sea-pink (Armeria). 



1, Common Thrift, Sea Pink, or Sea Gilliflower (A. maritima). — 

 Leaves linear, 1 -nerved ; awns of the calyx short ; perennial. Several 

 varieties of this Thrift are known to botanists. In one form the leaves are 

 flattish above, and the calyx-tnbe uniformly hairy ; in another having the 

 leaves thus flattened, the calyx-tube is hairy on the ribs only, and smooth 

 between them ; in a third form the leaves are grooved, and dotted above, 

 and the calyx-tube uniformly hairy, while in another variety the leaves are 

 grooved above, and the calyx-tube is hairy on the ribs only ; the last form is 

 very rare. Most dwellers on our seashores know well the pretty Thrift, for 

 it is often used as a common garden border in towns and villages near the 

 sea. It is also often brought inland for the same purpose, for which, as old 

 Gerarde observes, " it fitly serveth." Though not in such general use as in 

 the days of this old botanist, yet its pink tufts look well still amid their 

 long grassy leaves by many a flower-plot, and are rendered larger by culture, 

 and reddened into the hue of the rose itself. It is, however, truly, when 

 wild, a seaside plant, often occupying, as Hugh Miller says, with "its green 

 prominent cushions," the flat salt marsh, and standing up sometimes like 

 "little islets amid the flowing sea." Thousands of the Thrift plants form 

 these tufts over the marshes, and are thus watered at spring tides, while far 

 beyond them we may see the fleshy jointed stems of the glass-wort growing 

 out of the mud. On many marshes, however, the Thrift is never wholly 

 covered, and far as the eye can see the blossoms are enlivening the dreary 

 waste in such numbers as to remind us of Tennyson's words — 



" Wonder at the bounteous hours, 

 The slow result of winter showers, 

 You scarce can see the grass for flowers^" 



Sometimes they are of a deep rose-colour, and occasionally they are white, 



but more frequently these blossoms are of pale pink, which becoming paler 



as they grow older, give an aspect of whiteness to the grassy soil. The stalk 



of the Thrift is about three or four inches high ; pale brown scales mingle 



among the blossoms, and brown chaffy bracts, one, two, or three in number, 



grow beneath the head and form a covering to the upper part of the stalk. 



But our Thrift is not a " Sea-grass " only. It occurs on mountains far 



away from the sound of the wave, and in the Highlands of Scotland ascends 



as high as 3,800 feet. It gives to the children of the mountaineer a beautiful 



summer nosegay, and might have been among the blossoms of which 



Rogers has said — 



" In happy ignorance, the children played, 

 Alike unconscious, through their cloudless day, 

 Of what they had. and had not ; everywhere 

 Gathering rock flowers, or with their utmost might 

 Loosening the fragment from the precipice, 

 And, as it tumbled, listening for the plunge." 



The Thrift grows well on sea rocks, and up the face of high cliffs, as 

 well as on the tops of the stone hedges at their top. It doubtless acquired 

 its familiar name from thriving on the little nutriment such places afford. 

 The Germans give the plant the appropriate name of Das Seegras ; and in 



