98 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



In our boyish days we spent many an hour wander- 

 ing over such marshes. The restless hurry and motion of 

 the sea dies away as its waters penetrate by innumerable 

 channels into the low-lying land, and many a clear pool of 

 salt water holds within its quiet bosom quaint forms of 

 sea-life or the rich colours of the sea- weed. There too we 

 may find the samphire and many another lover of the salt 

 water; but in such a place the soft turfy cushion that 

 receives us as we spring across the water-channels is the 

 dense foliage of the thrift. 



The root of the thrift forms perennial tufts from 

 which numerous grass-like leaves ascend. It is a particularly 

 easy plant to transfer to the garden, and it is curious 

 that it should be so, for as Drummond points out that 

 the sweet rose would die if transferred to the salt sea 

 moisture, so we should imagine that the salt air and 

 moisture in which the thrift grows so healthily would be 

 more essential to its well-being than seems to be the 

 case. We have any quantity of the plant in our own 

 garden some sixty miles from the salt sea foam. It makes 

 a very beautiful garden edging, and is full to us of 

 present enjoyment and of happy memories of the past. 

 The plant increases very fast, and can be taken up each 

 year and freely divided at the roots; a long broad 

 edging of it a mass of verdure below, and above this 

 its countless crimson flower-heads is a really beautiful 

 feature in the garden. Its charms have appealed to 

 many a generation, for we find Gerarde writing that the 

 plant is "found in the most salt marshes in England, 

 as also in gardens, for the bordering up of beds and bankes, 

 for the which it serveth very fitly ;" and when he comes to 

 the usual heading of " the vertues, " he is fain to 



