72 A HANDBOOK FOR SOUTHPORT. 



named plants are not excluded, others of quite new character 

 and singularly charming are found in plenty. Foremost 

 among these are the Parnassia and the Pyrola, both of the 

 purest white, and in delicacy unexcelled by any garden flower. 

 The blossoms of the Parnassia (P. palustris) are shaped like 

 those of the common buttercup, and borne upon the tips of 

 slender stalks varying from three to six inches in height. They 

 often grow in companies of ten to twenty or more, all rising 

 from the same root, which may easily be dug up for convey- 

 ance home, where, if got young, and carefully placed in a 

 flower-pot and kept well watered, the beautiful little thing may 

 be retained as a parlour ornament for many weeks. There are 

 localities among the sandhills beyond Birkdale where, in 

 favourable seasons, so vast is the quantity of the Parnassia 

 that the whiteness of the ground may be compared to that 

 given by daisies to the sward. 



The Pyrola (P. rotundifolia) has been well styled the lily- 

 of-the-valley of the sandhills. This plant also grows in great 

 profusion, so that handfuls are gathered by visitors without 

 any seeming abatement. The leaves are roundish, and nearly 

 all close upon the surface of the ground. The flower-stems 

 are erect, four or five inches in height, and bear at the summit 

 half-a-dozen very pretty white corollas, the odour evolved 

 from which is so powerful that it can be perceived as one 

 walks along. The botanists find a technical difference 

 between the Birkdale plant and the rotundifolia of other 

 parts of England. The Birkdale form they distinguish as the 

 variety bractescens or maritima, and excepting upon the sand- 

 hills at Lytham, a few miles to the north of Southport upon 

 the opposite side of the estuary of the Ribble, it is under- 



