SEA CAMPION. 39 



its beauty of colouring, but as it dries it retains the angu- 

 lar rigidity of its foliage, and may then be preserved for 

 years amidst groups of shells or other trophies of the 

 beach. Though the lines of Drummond refer to one plant, 

 while we are writing of another, they are equally true of 

 both ; and if our readers will begin with " The campion 

 here/' they will arrive at a very just impression of the 

 wild home of our present plant. 



The stems of the sea campion are naturally short ; the 

 fierce cold winds that beat across the beach effectually 

 prevent any untoward aspirations, and each stem bears but 

 one or two flowers ; one of our stems, we see, bears one 

 flower, while the other has, beside its expanded blossom, 

 the promise of another. These stems spread a good deal 

 laterally, and are rather closely covered with the small and 

 fleshy leaves. Both stems and leaves often have the cold 

 blue-green tint that is so characteristic of the maritime 

 flora, more or less changed into warmer tints of crimson 

 and brown. 



The plant is perennial. The flowers are large and hand- 

 some-looking as they shine like stars amongst the dense 

 mass of foliage, and well repay in their fragile-looking grace 

 the regard we gladly give them, as we watch their gallant 

 struggle for existence far from sheltering fence or shady 

 hedgerow. We need indeed waste no such misplaced pity 

 on them, as the Divine Hand that placed them there fitted 

 them amply for the circumstances surrounding them, and 

 it would speedily prove no mercy to them to move them 

 from their wild surroundings to some quiet inland dell. 

 The wild freedom and the boisterous music of the crashing 

 surf and the cry of the sweeping gull are the natural 

 accompaniments of their lot in life. The nestling prim- 



