70 A HANDBOOK FOR SOUTHPORT. 



flowers is primrose -coloured ; and as if enamoured of consis- 

 tency, the odour of these reminds one of cowslips. 



Where the sand is not covered by maram or salix, and is 

 fairly consolidated, we may often see the hound's-tongue, 

 Cynoglossum officinale. The stems, which attain the height of 

 about two feet, bear abundance of little purplish claret-coloured 

 flowers. When gone, they are succeeded by great prickly 

 seeds, growing in fours, and that catch hold of one's clothing 

 below the knees, and like burs, refuse to let go. 



In company with the hound's-tongue, there is plenty also 

 of the Carline-thistle, Carlina vulgaris, prickly, like all the 

 others of its race, but totally different in the colour of the 

 flowers, which are yellowish and glossy, and remarkably 

 sensitive to changes of the sky. 



Not far from these will also be found two species of the 

 very singular plants called "spurge," the Euphorbia Parallels, 

 and the Euphorbia Portlandica. The first-named, the great 

 sea-spurge, is two feet high, well-clothed with narrow leaves, 

 the insignificant flowers greenish-yellow ; the stem, very tough, 

 filled with sticky milky juice, which owes its qualities to the 

 presence of caoutchouc, or " India-rubber," too small in 

 quantity, however, to be worth the trouble of extracting. The 

 other species, the Portland spurge, is dwarf and bushy. The 

 little roundish leaves assume in October most beautiful shades 

 of amber and crimson. The juice, as in the Paralias, is milky 

 and sticky. 



Dotted about, still where the sandy slopes are quite open, 

 there is a fair sprinkling also of Eryngo, Eryngium maritimum, 

 the Touch-me-not of the sandhills. Every portion of the 

 plant presents a chevaux-de-frise of strong and very pungent 



