SUFFOLK SAND-DUNES 101 



characteristic plant, and with it in considerable abund- 

 ance the sheep's-scabious. A few plants of the pa^e 

 green sea-spurge, a species generally more at home in 

 Suffolk on the shingle than on the sand, will also be 

 seen, and several interesting grasses. Just before 

 reaching the little fishing hamlet of Thorpe two strik- 

 ing species, of an entirely different character, are fairly 

 plentiful. A rare form, perhaps a distinct species, of 

 the common centaury known as Erythraa littoralis, 

 Fries, or the dwarf tufted centaury, a lowly plant, 

 much branched, with bright pink flowers crowded in a 

 dense cyme, found only in one or two localities on the 

 Suffolk coast, makes a beautiful show on the sandy 

 dunes ; while just at the end of the warren, where the 

 ground begins to rise, there is a goodly colony of the 

 very rare sea-buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides, L.). 

 This is a fine willow-like shrub, some seven or eight feet 

 in height, with shining silvery leaves, and bearing in 

 the autumn small orange berries. Twice only have I 

 found this handsome species in a native locality, once 

 on the wide warren between Deal and Sandwich, and 

 here on the Suffolk sand-dunes, not far from Aldeburgh. 

 Here, too, the lovely little burnet rose (Rosa spinosis- 

 sima, L.), with solitary white flowers and black, globular 

 berries, is plentiful. This is almost certainly the 

 traditional Dunwich rose of monastic legend : 



" With snow-like blossom, 

 Soft, pure, and white as is the cygnet's bosom ; 

 That decks the stern and sterile cliff, and throws 

 O'er its rough brow new beauty where it grows." 



The spiny sea-holly or Eryngo is beyond question one 

 of the most beautiful plants, not only of the sand-dunes, 



