AUGUST. 173 



dishes. There is a great quantity of sugar 

 both in the wild and cultivated species. 



The sea purslanes, (Atriplex,) and the 

 common gooseCoots, {Chenopodimn,) are in this 

 month plentiful near the sea, and are mostly 

 in bloom. The leaves of the former are gene- 

 rally of a whitish green, and the plant often grows 

 in such quantities as to present to the eye a 

 grey green mass. The flowers are green, tinged 

 with red, and grow in clusters of thick spikes, 

 at the upper part of the stem. The goosefoots 

 are very similar to these plants, and some of 

 them are burned with the glassworts and other 

 marine plants, for the soda yielded by their 

 ashes. One kind is termed the good king 

 Henry, {Chenopodhim bonus Henricus,) and is 

 cultivated in Lincolnshire as spinach, and its 

 stems as asparagus. It is quite as good in its 

 wild as in its cultivated state. 



The woodlands are now full of boughs and 

 leaves, and the summer-flowers of last month 

 are blooming yet. Some very pretty ferns 

 wave their luxuriant and feathery leaves, and 

 the mosses are thickening into a soft pathway. 

 The rare purple Helleborine {Epipactis lati- 

 folid) should be sought for now, and may be 

 found in the woods of mountainous countries. 

 Its flowers are a long lax spike, sometimes of 

 a greenish purple, at others deep tinted as the 

 purple grape of the vine. 



