i 9 o FLOWERS OF THE SEA-COAST 



Cardigan, Denbigh, Flint, S. Lanes, S.E. Yorks, Northumberland, 

 but is ubiquitous elsewhere. In Scotland it is found on the coasts of 

 Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, Fife. It is thus general from Fife 

 to Kent and Devon. It is native in Ireland and the Channel Islands. 



Sea Lavender is found on muddy shores, flat coasts, and estuaries, 

 especially on the east coast as well as on the west, where the rocky 

 foreshore is flanked by stretches of mud or sand. It is found where 

 Thrift, Sea Purslane, Sea Milkwort, Seaside Bindweed, and Sea 

 Plantain grow. 



The aerial flowering stem is really a scape, and all the leaves are 

 radical, having a wavy margin, with long leaf-stalks, and pinnately- 

 arranged veins. The leaves are oblong, smooth, blunt, and mucronate, 

 or bluntly terminated with a sharp point. 



The flowers are small but conspicuous, blue, and borne on leafless 

 scapes or flowering stems, which are numerous, angular, and bear 

 terminal flowers in a much-branched corymb or panicle, each spikelet 

 bearing two or three flowers, and the spikes are spreading and even 

 curved backwards. The outer bracts or leaflike organs of the calyx 

 are rounded on the back, the calyx lobes having intermediate teeth. 

 The calyx and corolla each form a tube. There is honey at the base 

 of the latter. 



The plant is about i ft. high. It flowers between May and 

 August. It is perennial, and propagated by division, and worthy of 

 cultivation. 



The flowers are dimorphic, of two types. Being a maritime plant 

 the flower is not visited by insects like an inland species. The petals 

 have long claws or stalks, the stamens are opposite the corolla lobes, 

 and the anther-stalks are threadlike; the anthers open inwards, and the 

 styles are free, their stigmas being hairlike or linear, and the flower is 

 thus adapted to self-pollination. The anthers are ripe before the 

 stigma. 



The calyx is coloured. The calyx does not fall, and some flowers 

 have undeveloped anthers; being membranous above, the capsule is 

 dispersed by the wind. 



Sea Lavender is a salt-lover and requires a saline soil, being also a 

 sand-loving plant and growing on a sand soil. 



A micro-fungus, Uromyces limonii attacks it. A beetle, Apion 

 limonii, and a moth, Adactyla bennetii, are to be found upon it. 



Limonium, Dioscorides, is from the Greek leimonios, belonging to 

 a moist place or meadow, and the second Latin name refers to its 

 common occurrence. 



