SEA PURSLANE 



179 



in Arctic America. In Great Britain it occurs on most parts of the 

 coast, but is absent from East Sussex, Monmouth, Flint, Westmorland, 

 Mid Kbucles. 



The Sea Purslane is a sine qua non, as it were, of the flora that one 

 meets with on most sea-coasts. It grows on every sandy beach, being 

 a sand plant like the majority of the species of this group (hence the 

 generic name), and is a salt-lover and one of the strand plants, accom- 



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SEA Pi'RSLANE (Arenana peploides, L.) 



panied usually by such plants as Sea Rocket, Saltwort, Sea Milkwort, 

 Sand Sedge, Marram Grass, and other plants. 



It has a creeping habit, the so-called roots being really rhizomes. 

 The stem is prostrate, then ascending, fleshy, forked, and the branches 

 are suberect. The leaves are lance-shaped, stalkless, arranged in 

 opposite rows, egg-shaped, acute, bent backwards, close, and single- 

 nerved, with the margins distinct. The whole plant is smooth, shiny, 

 and dark green, like a Stonecrop or Sea Milkwort. 



The flowers are white, solitary, axillary, the petals are inversely 

 egg-shaped, the sepals blunt, single-veined, and shorter than the petals 

 in the male, longer in the female Mowers. The long and short stamens 



