THE HOUSELEEK TRIBE. 117 



sawyers to get it down for me ; but they were so 

 busy at their work, that they did not attend to me." 



"Of course not!" said Henry. "You should 

 have asked me to climb the shed, as I did the 

 garden wall, when you wanted a heap of yellow 

 stonecrop that was growing there." 



" The different sorts of stonecrop* are members 

 Of the houseleek tribe," said his father, " as well 

 as the common houseleek,-}" which Mary has been 

 describing. There is also the Mossy Tilloea, or 

 Eed-shanks, with red creeping stems and white 

 flowers, common on the sandy heaths of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk ; and there is the Nayelwort, with 

 purplish stems and pale-yellow flowers. All these 

 and many foreign species make up a tribe, in- 

 teresting in its hardy habit and power of growing 

 almost without any soil. They are found on naked 

 rocks, sandy plains, and spots where not a blade of 

 grass will grow." 



" I have often wondered," said Mary, " how the 

 stonecrop could live upon a wall where there is no 

 earth for it, and where on sunny days it is so hot 

 that I can scarcely bear my hand upon the bricks." 



"These plants get their nourishment chiefly 

 * Sedum. f Sempervivum. 



