CLOVE PINK TRIBE 109 



on different plants ; leaves narrowing at the base. Plant perennial. This is 

 a rare, or at least a local plant, easily known by its whorls of small flowers 

 with their narrow petals of yellowish-white colour, which expand in July. 

 It occurs in sandy fields in some of the eastern counties of England. The 

 stems are about a foot high, and very clammy at the middle. 



* * * * Stems elongated ; floivcrs in leafy dusters, alternate. 



5. English Catchfly (»S'. dnglica). — All parts of the plant hairy and 

 clammy ; petals small, crowned, slightly cleft or entire ; flowers lateral, 

 alternate, erect, lower ones bending downwards when in fruit ; leaves narrow, 

 tapering. Plant annual. This species, too, is somewhat local, though in 

 many parts of England it occurs in plenty, attaining greater or less luxuri- 

 ance according to the soil. Its stem is from six to twelve inches high, and 

 it is so clammy as to be often quite disfigured by the insects adhering to it, 

 their little wings held tightly by the viscid substance which allured them 

 thither. The flowers, which may be found all through the summer, are 

 usually pinkish-white, and very small ; but several varieties of the plant are 

 known, in one of which the flowers are solitary in the axils of the upper 

 leaves. This has usually a red spot on each of its petals. It has been found 

 wild near Wrotham, in Kent, and some other places ; and it was formerly 

 much planted in gardens, under the name of Silene quinque-vulnera. It grows 

 low, and is very prolific, so that it is well adapted for sowing in pots ; but it 

 is less generally cultivated than it once was. The Dutch call this, or some 

 other species of Catchfly, Veldkaars. 



***** Stems panicled, leafy ; calyx not bladder-like. 



6. Nottingham Catchfly (S. niHtans). — Flowers all drooping one way; 

 branches opposite, 3-forked; calyx much swollen, and marked with dark- 

 brown lines ; petals deeply cloven, crowned ; stem-leaves lance-shaped, those 

 of the root tapering at the base. Plant perennial. Those who have never 

 scented the evening air made fragrant by a number of these flowers, can 

 hardly imagine how powerful an odour they exhale. It has somewhat of 

 the perfume, so like that of prussic acid, which exists in several of our 

 flowers, as the meadow-sweet and blackthorn ; but it is far more powerful 

 than the scent of either of these blossoms; and when borne to us, as it 

 sometimes is, on the sea-breeze, it is truly delicious. This plant floAvers during 

 June or July, on some limestone and chalk rocks of our sea-shores, as well as 

 on those of inland districts, but is not common. On portions of the sides of 

 those towering and majestic cliff's which border the shore for several miles 

 along the east of Dover, as well as at some parts of the cliff's standing to the 

 west of the town, thousands of the pretty white starry blossoms of the 

 Catchfly may be seen in the evening, growing on stems about a foot high. 

 Nor do these flowers wait, as some night flowers do, for darkness ere they 

 expand ; for the author has seen them in their full glory by eight o'clock, 

 before the soft twilight has thrown its subdued shadow over the summit of 

 the cliffs. Many a lovely flower grows on those cliffs ; for although on sail- 

 ing past them at a distance their white surfaces seem only streaked with 

 stripes of verdure, yet on walking by them we find that their crags and clefts 



