CLOVE PINK TRIBE 105 



which adorn their gardens, and afford them so good a recreation from toil. 

 These growers reckon above 300 varieties of this species. 



4. Mountain Pink or Cheddar Pink {D. ca'sius). — Stems mostly 

 single flowered ; scales of the calyx, roundish, slightly pointed, about one- 

 fourth as long as the tube ; leaves long and narrow, glaucous, rough at the 

 edges ; petals bearded and irregularly jagged. Plant perennial. This is an 

 exceedingly rare species, growing on the limestone cliffs of Cheddar in 

 Somersetshire, and bearing, in July, large fragrant rose-coloured flowers. 



5. Maiden Pink (D. deltoides). — Flowers solitary ; calyx scales pointed, 

 usually 2, half the length of the calyx ; petals notched ; stem and leaves 

 somewhat rough. Plant perennial. This is a rare Pink, found on dry banks, 

 where the soil is of gravel. The stems are from six to twelve inches high, 

 and much branched. The flower appears in July and August ; it is rose- 

 coloured, dotted with white, and has a dark ring around the centre. It is 

 without perfume. 



2. SOAPWORT (Sapondria). 



Common Soapwort (S. officinalis). — Leaves opposite and connate, 

 l)road, pointed, and smooth ; panicle of several large flowers. Plant perennial. 

 This is not an uncommon plant by road-sides, and on the margin of woods 

 and hedge-banks, but it is rarely seen at any distance from houses. It cannot 

 be regarded as truly wild, and as it was valued by our forefathers for 

 "decking of houses," we are doubtless indebted to them for it in our hedges. 

 The whole herb is full of a mucilaginous juice, which will lather with hot 

 water, and may be used as an indifferent substitute for soap. The roots 

 contain this soapy principle (saponine) in a greater degree than the foliage, 

 and might perhaps be employed with greater advantage. Saponine has been 

 found by chemists to exist in several other of our wild and garden plants ; 

 and these plants are said, by M. Bonnet and M. Malapert, to be poisonous, 

 in consequence. In some plants this principle exists only in the root, in 

 others in the foliage and seed. These great chemists found that, in the 

 corn-cockle (Agrostemma), it was found in the unripe seed and in the roots, 

 but in no other part of the plant. The Nottingham catchfly (Silene nutans) 

 contains at least as much saponine as the Soapwort, and here it is diffused in 

 all parts of the plant except the seed. Our clove pink, as well as several 

 other of our garden and wild pinks, have it also chiefly in the roots, a small 

 portion existing in the leaves, and none in the flower or seed. The wild 

 lychnis (Lychnis diiinia), and the brilliant scarlet lychnis of the flower-bed, as 

 well as the little scarlet pimpernel and some other field flowers, have it in 

 more or less abundance. It seems to be detected chiefly in plants belonging 

 to the Order Caryophi/Ueoi, but it is quite absent from some genera of this 

 Order, as in the sandworts and stitchworts. 



On account of the quantity of the soapy principle known to exist in the 

 Soapwort, the learned botanist Fuchs thought that this must be the plant 

 termed Struthium by the ancients, which they used as soap, and also in dyeing, 

 and which must doubtless have possessed a saponaceous juice. Difficult, 

 however, as it may be to decide what this jjlant may have been, its descrip- 

 tion is not believed by learned men in general to be at all applicable in other 



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