SEASIDE FLOWEKING PLANTS. 15 9 * 



The Great Sea-Stock (Matthiola sinuata) occurs 

 in some localities, but is less frequent than the 

 preceding, although a genuine plant of the sea- 

 shore. The stem grows to the height of two feet, 

 the leaves are downy, obtuse at the ends, sinuate, 

 but those of the branches undivided. The whole 

 plant is covered with dense starry hairs and short 

 prickles, and the flowers are purple. 



Two species of Sandwort (Arenaria) invite the 

 attention of those who visit the localities where 

 they flourish, and which, as the name indicates, 

 grow in the sand. The one is A. peploides ; its 

 leaves are egg-shaped, acute, and fleshy, and its 

 flowers white and inconspicuous. The other (A. 

 marina}, which has semi-cylindrical leaves, has 

 rather large flowers of a pale purple ; both plants 

 are fleshy and succulent in their structure, and are 

 associated by botanists in the order to which pinks 

 and carnations belong. 



The Sea Stork's-bill (Erodium maritimum) is 

 another plant common on the sandy shores of va- 

 rious parts of the south of England ; its leaves are 

 simple, heart-shaped, crenate or notched in their 

 margins, and rough, the stems depressed and hairy, 

 the flowers small and of a pale red. 



Taking up their abode in gravelly and sandy 

 places on the sea-shores there are likewise several 

 plants of the vetch family, one characteristic of 

 which is the pod more or less similar to that of 

 the pea. The Sea Pea (Pisum maritimum), with 

 a "procumbent stem, bearing alternate pinnated 

 leaves and branched tendrils, and stalks with nu- 



