80 A HANDBOOK FOR SOUTHPORT. 



The plants found upon the Southport shore, which also 

 occur in inland habitats, are preeminently the 



Sea-side Pink, or Thrift (Armerta maritima). 



Scurvy-grass (Cochlearia Danica), and the 



Strawberry Trefoil (Trifolium fragtferum}, that pretty species 

 which converts the heads of bloom during the maturation 

 of the seed into the similitude of raspberries. 



THE INLAND PLANTS. 



The inland portion of the Southport flora consists, in the 

 main, of plants such as are commonly met with all over 

 England, in fields and by waysides those, in a word, 

 which constitute the ordinary vegetation of the country, 

 where a distinct character is not given by the predominance 

 of limestone. Plants requiring or fond of calcareous soil 

 are here not to be expected. In compensation there occur 

 many which are identified more particularly with the New 

 red-sandstone formations, and which, in course of ages, have 

 no doubt moved westwards from the great red-sandstone 

 districts a few miles further to the east. To enumerate these 

 very common and universally diffused plants is not necessary. 

 The list would be little more than a catalogue of the ordinary 

 components of turf, and of the accustomed weeds of culti- 

 vated land, and of shaded banks and rural hedgerows, though 

 many of the latter are quite as well entitled to the appellation 

 of wild-flowers as the rarest and most eagerly sought of the 

 botanical treasures and curiosities. Many of these compara- 

 tively common plants are not, after all, to be expected to occur 

 near Southport in abundance. A walk of two or three miles 

 into the country is needful for the finding of a considerable! 



