4$4 FLORA OF THE (JHESIL BANK AND THE FLEET. 



man considered by Lowell to be possessed of the most imagina- 

 tive mind since Shakespeare cannot fail to be gratifying to 

 Dorset naturalists. 5". Jruticosa sometimes attains a great age ; 

 I have found by the Fleet some very old root stocks, measuring 

 five inches in circumference. The conditions of the inner shore 

 appear to be unfavourable to its growth ; there it seems to be 

 dying out. It is one of our rarities, being recorded from seven 

 British counties and vice-counties only. Like some other Fleet 

 plants which I shall mention, it reaches its extreme western limit 

 in Britain at the Abbotsbury Swannery. 



That common plant of our cornfields, which you all know, the 

 Corn Sowthistle (Sonchus arvensis, L.), shows a strange partiality 

 for the immediate vicinity of salt or brackish water. From July 

 to September it forms a golden fringe on parts of the Chesil 

 Bank just above a line formed by masses of Zoslera left by the 

 tide. Zostera marina, L., var. angust if olia, Fr., covers much of 

 the bed of the Fleet, affording food for the swans ; it is locally 

 called Silkgrass. 



The Yellow Horned Poppy (Glaucium luteum, Scop.), is not so 

 common here as might have been expected ; it is locally called 

 "Squat-maw" or "Bruise-herb," the leaves being reputed to 

 have the effect of curing bruises. 



The rare and lovely Sea Pea (Lalhyrus mariiimus, Bigel), 

 grows abundantly among the naked pebbles of the Bank, at 

 intervals from opposite the Portland Ferry Bridge to East 

 Bexington, (a little north-west of the Abbotsbury Swannery), 

 which is, I believe, its present western limit in Britain. 

 There has been no record for Devon for upwards of 50 years, 

 and none for Cornwall for nearly 200 years. Mounting some- 

 times to nearly the highest ridges of the Bank, its roots extend 

 very many feet down through the absolutely loose shingle. A 

 peculiarity of the plant is that, in the evening, like some others 

 of the leguminosae, its leaflets point upwards. It flowers until 

 the end of August. During a famine in the i6th century the 

 poor on part of the Suffolk coast were kept alive by eating the 

 seeds of the Sea Pea, and I see no reason to doubt that, in times 



