THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 105 



satin flowers. In the bog is another, the Bog Stitchwort, 8. uli- 

 ginosa, with broad leaves and tiny insignificant flowers. The Sand- 

 worts are a numerous and puzzling family, but one of their number 

 may be found almost anywhere on the sea coast, for it loves the 

 rock, the drifted sand, and the salt marsh alike, but it nowhere 

 thrives except near the sea. This is the sea-side Sandwort, or sea- 

 side Alsine, Arenaria marina, or Spergularia marina. The stems 

 are prostrate, the leaves semi-cylindrical, with accompanying white 

 chaffy stipules, the flowers lilac and purple. You may pass over 

 carpets of this pretty plant in rambling amongst the rocks, and yet 

 know nothing of its beauty, for the flowers close soon after noon on 

 dull days and are never open after four p.m. The Purple Alsine, 

 Arenaria rubra, is a good imitation of the sea-side Alsine, but a 

 smaller and less succulent plant, not at all in love with the sea, for 

 it grows on sand and gravel almost everywhere. They are pro- 

 bably two forms of the same species. Closely allied to the Arenarias 

 and Stellarias are the Mouse-ear Chickweeds, the handsomest of 

 which is the Field Chickweed, Ccrastium arvense, a plentiful plant 

 in a few districts, usually found on sandy banks in the full sun. It 

 is so like the Great Stitchwort, that it may be easily mistaken for it, 

 but on comparison, will be found to differ in many particulars, not 

 the least important being the darker colour of its leaves, those of 

 the Great Stitchwort being of a most delicate light green. The 

 pretty silvery-leaved plant employed for edging flower-beds, Ceras- 

 tium tomentosum, the "serastum " of the rustic who has picked up 

 a few garden names, is the prettiest of all the family, and a good 

 type of them too when allowed to become half wild and produce, in 

 spring, its exquisitely finished white satin flowers. It is a native of 

 Southern Europe. 



More humble than all these, but equally worthy of notice, are 

 those little tufty moss-like plants, the Spurreys, of which we shall 

 select four for special notice. For tha first go and search at the 

 foot of an old brick wall, or on a damp cinder-heap, or amongst a 

 lot of plants in flower-pots, for a mossy tuft of bluish-green vegeta- 

 tion, dotted with tiny grey flowers. It is the Procumbent Pearl- 

 wort, Sagvna procumbens, an Alpine plant, which coudescends to 

 make itself at home anywhere, and usually prefers to clothe with 

 its glossy greeu mossy cushions spots where no other plaut could 

 grow. In warm spots on sand and brick it usually remains green 

 all the winter, but is best wn-th finding while in flower. 



A plant very closely resembling it, but quite distinct and far 

 more beautiful, is the Pearlwort Spurrey, Spergula saainoides, 

 which occurs in plenty on the Scottish highlands, and might be 

 Bought with some hope of success on Dartmoor, and even on the 

 Bagshot Sand. But failing all means of obtaining wild specimens, 

 you may secure tame ones by cultivating the so-called Spergula pili- 

 fera of gardens, which is merely a large flowering variety of the 

 Pearlwort Spurrey, introduced to English gardens in 1859 as a 

 substitute for grass on lawns. It never acquired any solid popu- 

 larity, and yet it really does form, when properly managed, the most 

 beautiful lawn imagiaable ; bright as the best grass newly mown, 



Jane. 



