SHINGLE VEGETATION OF SUFFOLK SHORE 97 



herbalist relates his personal experience. " Some," 

 he says, " write by report of others, that it enflameth 

 exceedingly, but my selfe speak by experience ; for 

 walking along the sea coast at Lee in Essex, with a 

 Gentleman called Mr Rich, dwelling in the same towne, 

 I tooke but one drop of it into my mouth ; which 

 neverthelesse did so inflame and swell in my throte 

 that I hardly escaped with my life. And in like case 

 was the Gentleman, which caused us to take our horses, 

 and poste for our lives unto the next farme house to 

 drinke some milke to quench the extremitie of our heat, 

 which then ceased." 



In former years other and rarer plants were occasion- 

 ally to be found on the pebbles of the shore, and among 

 the extinct plants of Great Britain must be included 

 one or two members of our scanty shingle vegetation. 

 A creeping vetch (V. Icevigata, Sm.), with solitary pale 

 blue flowers, a near relative to the yellow Vicia lutea, 

 L., which I found blooming plentifully among the 

 pebbles at Landguard Point, formerly grew on the long 

 belt of shingle between Weymouth and Abbotsbury, 

 but the plant has been lost for many years. The same 

 is perhaps true of Diotis maritima, Cass., the sea 

 cotton-seed or cudweed. At the beginning of the last 

 century George Crabbe found it on the long beach of 

 stones near the Orford lighthouse. Formerly this 

 choice plant, " growing much about a handful high, 

 with leaves thicke upon the stalkes, very white, soft, 

 and woolly," was to be seen on various parts of the 

 coast. Ray found it in several places on the coast of 

 Wales; it was recorded from the Isle of Wight, and 

 Gerard saw it " growing at a place called Merezey, six 

 miles from Colchester, neere unto the sea side." It has 



