THRIFT. 99 



confess that " their use in physic as yet is not knowne, 

 nor doth any seeke into the nature thereof, but esteeme 

 them onely for their beautie and pleasure/' Parkinson, 

 from the general appearance of the plant, included it amongst 

 grasses, and, as he cannot definitely assign it any valuable 

 medicinal qualities, assumes them, rather than disappoint 

 himself and his readers, for he says : " It is generally held 

 that the root of the sea quick-grass is as effectuall as the 

 ordinary or common sort, and therefore for the qualitie 

 I shall referre you to be enfbrmed there where I speake of 

 it, that so I may avoide a double repetition of the same 

 things. This difference between theese and those of the 

 land hath beene observed that cattle will not feede on the 

 leaves of these by reason of their hardnesse, roughnesse, 

 and sharpnesse, whereas they refuse not the other/' 

 This latter fact we should have thought would have set 

 the old herbalist on his guard, for we never see any 

 cattle or horses browsing in these sea-meadows, and 

 where they so readily detect that thrift, after all, only 

 has the appearance of grass, and none of its true nature, 

 it is hardly fair to suffering humanity to assume that 

 practically it all comes to the same thing which is 

 used. Can our old author have had a dim suspicion 

 that it did really come to very much the same thing 

 which broken reed his patients trusted to ? 



It is a very curious thing that this plant, so character- 

 istic of the low-lying salt marshes, and so thoroughly at 

 home there, is equally at home in a very different locality, 

 the breezy summits of some of the highest Scotch 

 mountains. 



The flowering stems of the thrift are simple in 

 character, and rise at once from the cushion-like tuft of 



