32 PURPLE SANDWORT. 



flowers are large and of the purest white ; 

 they are elevated on short stalks, and varied 

 with recurved and hoary excrescences, by 

 means of which, every particle of moisture 

 is absorbed for the nourishment of the up- 

 land plant : with the same obvious design 

 the calyx-leaves are oval and somewhat con- 

 cave. 



The sea spuiTy has a different office to 

 perform from that of the fringed sandwort, 

 which thus vividly adorns the most rocky 

 and sterile regions; it points out the exist- 

 ence of salt-springs, however concealed, for 

 it seems unable to vegetate in soils that are 

 not full of saline particles, and hence its 

 purple flowers grow profusely in salt marshes, 

 and along the coast, where they seem to shed 

 a purple light in beautiful contrast to the 

 bright sparkle of the wild waves' play. The 

 small arctic sandwort is seen, on the contrary, 

 in sterile places, far above the surging of the 



