122 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
stem like a big cabbage - stalk, well furnished with 
large, lobed, roundish leaves. Next year it completes 
its growth, and has become five or six feet high, with 
flowering branches bearing glossy purple flowers an 
inch and a half across. This may only be seen very 
near the sea; indeed, the only places where it is truly 
wild are among the rocks and on islets off the coast. 
I have found it on island-rocks off the Cornish coast, 
where the only other vegetation was scurvy-grass, 
scentless may-weed, samphire, and a dock. There it 
raised its stout stem, and seemed to defy storm and 
sea alike. 
