WHITLOW GEASSES SEA-KALE. 31 



Of the Water Awl-wort (Subularia aqiiatica), the next family 

 in the Cresswort order, which grows at the bottom of the 

 Highland lakes, we have no specimen. 



The Whitlow Grasses have lobed petals, but in other points 

 resemble their predecessors. The little Vernal Whitlow Grass 

 (Draba verna, Plate III., fig. 2), so common early in spring 

 on old walls, is a familiar object. Its star-shaped cluster of 

 simple leaves is hairy and its stem leafless, while the cluster 

 of flowers is large in proportion to the minute bulk of the plant. 

 About Edinburgh the old turf-topped walls are gay with myriads 

 of this pretty little pknt, and at midsummer I have found it 

 decorating heaps of rubbish around the mouths of exhausted 

 lead-mines on our Yorkshire moors. Its pouches differ from 

 those of the Scurvy Grass in being quite flat and oval. The 

 Yellow Whitlow Grass (D. aizoides), is more shrubby in its 

 growth, and its clustered spike is thicker and more crowded. 

 It adorns the rocks in mountain glens, and was transplanted 

 from them to the rockery from whence my specimen came. 

 The Speedwell-leaved Whitlow Grass we have none of us 

 found; but Fanny has brought the hoary species (Draba 

 incana), as a memento of one of her rambles on the banks of 

 the Looe river. The flowers are smaller and their footstalks 

 shorter than in the other species ; the main stem is tough and 

 woody, it and the leaves are covered with a mealy bloom. It 

 grows a foot and a half high, and flowers in June. 



Here is the purple Sea Eocket (Cakile rnaritima, Plate III., 

 fig. 3), with its bright green fleshy foliage and thick oval pouches. 

 I gathered it on the coast of Durham, near the little village of 

 Eoker, one June day. Young shoots of this plant and of a 

 Sisymbrium are eaten in the Crimea as salad herbs. 



The Sea-kale (Crambe maritima), so familiar in our gardens, 

 grows wild abundantly on the cliffs on the south coast, making 

 a great show with its large spikes of white flowers and glaucous 

 foliage. The edible species of this Cresswort order are all 

 rendered milder, sweeter, and larger by cultivation. Though 



