SEA PURSLANE 



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in Arctic America. In Great Britain it occurs on most parts of the 

 coast, but is absent from East Sussex, Monmouth, Flint, Westmorland, 

 Mid Ebudes. 



The Sea Purslane is a sine qua non, as it were, of the flora that one 

 meets with on most sea- coasts. It grows on every sandy beach, being 

 a sand plant like the majority of the species of this group (hence the 

 generic name), and is a salt-lover and one of the strand plants, accom- 



SEA PURSLANE (Arenaria peploides, L.) 



Photo. Messrs. Flatters & Garnett 



panied usually by such plants as Sea Rocket, Saltwort, Sea Milkwort, 

 Sand Sedge, Marram Grass, and other plants. 



It has a creeping habit, the so-called roots being really rhizomes. 

 The stem is prostrate, then ascending, fleshy, forked, and the branches 

 are suberect. The leaves are lance-shaped, stalkless, arranged in 

 opposite rows, egg-shaped, acute, bent backwards, close, and single- 

 nerved, with the margins distinct. The whole plant is smooth, shiny, 

 and dark green, like a Stonecrop or Sea Milkwort. 



The flowers are white, solitary, axillary, the petals are inversely 

 egg-shapecl, the sepals blunt, single-veined, and shorter than the petals 

 in the male, longer in the female flowers. The long and short stamens 



