522 PLUMBAGINACE^l. 



9. SAMOLUS (Brookweed). 



1. S. Valerandi (Brookweed). The only British 

 species. Watery places, common, and, like many other 

 aquatic plants, widely diffused, being found in Africa, 

 America, and New South Wales. A smooth, pale green, 

 herbaceous plant, with blunt, fleshy leaves, and one or 

 more terminal clusters of very small white flowers, which, 

 in their early stage, are crowded, but finally become 

 distant, resembling in this respect the habit of the 

 Cruciform Tribe. Fl. July September. Annual. 



ORD. LXVLPLUMBAGINACE^. THRIFT TRIBE. 



Calyx tubular, plaited, chaffy, not falling off, often 

 coloured ; corolla 5-cleft nearly to the base ; stamens 5 

 opposite the petals, ovary of 5 carpels, 1 -celled ; styles 

 5 ; fruit 1-seeded. Herbaceous or somewhat shrubby 

 plants, with undivided, fleshy leaves, and flowers of a 

 thin texture, approaching that usually called Everlast- 

 ing, collected into heads or growing in panicles. They 

 inhabit salt marshes and the sea shore of most temperate 

 regions, and some are also found in mountainous districts. 

 Their properties are various, some are tonic, some in- 

 tensely acrid, and many contain iodine. The root of 

 Stdtice Carolinianais one of the most powerful astringents 

 known ; several species of Plumbago are so acrid that 

 the fresh root is used to raise blisters. Thrift (Armeria) 

 and several kinds of Sea-Lavender (Stdtice) grow on the 

 sea shores of Britain, and are very pretty plants. Other 

 species are cultivated in gardens and conservatories, to 

 which they are highly ornamental. It has been remarked 

 that the plants of this order, like many other marine 

 plants, when growing at a distance from the sea, lose 

 the peculiar salts which they contain in their natural 

 localities. Thrift, for example, as a marine plant con- 

 tains iodine and soda, but as a mountain or garden 

 plant, exchanges these two salts for potash. 



1. ARMERIA (Thrift). Flowers in heads ; styles hairy. 

 (Name from the French armoiries.) 



