140 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



noticed the glaucous form of the bulrush in the " sea- 

 ditches at Mersea." Earlier still Gerarde gathered the 

 beautiful sea-convolvulus, with its large, pale, rose- 

 coloured flowers striped with red, on the sandy shore, 

 and the very rare sea-cottonweed or Diotis mari- 

 tima. This latter, he says, " groweth at a place called 

 Merezey, six miles from Colchester, neere unto the 

 sea-side." Unfortunately this exceedingly rare plant, 

 which is thickly clothed with white cotton and bears 

 small terminal heads of yellow flowers, is now lost on 

 Mersea, and is no longer to be found in the county 

 of Essex. 



Another locality in the marshes intimately asso- 

 ciated with the early history of the Essex flora is 

 " Landermere Lading," at the head of Hamford Water. 

 The spot, especially at high water, is a very pictur- 

 esque one, with its ancient wharf and storehouses of 

 black boarding roofed with deep-red tiles, and its 

 group of fishermen's cottages, in one of which the 

 famous physician Sir William Gull passed his early 

 years. Even at low tide the vast stretch of mud-flats 

 has a quiet beauty of its own, especially when the sea- 

 lavender is in flower. On the sea-banks about Lander- 

 mere a rare and striking plant, remarkable for its large 

 umbels of yellow flowers, and found only in one or 

 two localities in England, is still as plentiful as when 

 Gerarde first discovered it in the sixteenth century. 

 It is known as sulphurwort, the reason whereof is 

 thus given by our famous herbalist : " I have digged 

 up roots thereof," he says, " as big as a man's thigh, 

 blacke without and white within, of a strong and 

 grievous smell, and full of yellow sap or liquor, which 

 quickly waxeth hard or dry, smelling not much unlike 

 brimstone, called sulpher, which hath induced some to 



