SUFFOLK SAND-DUNES 103 



barren and desolate appearance. In places the surface 

 is thickly matted with pale, sickly looking mosses and 

 lichens, and dotted here and there with stunted elder- 

 trees and dwarf clumps of thick-set gorse bushes. 

 Faded carpets of yellow Sedum or stonecrop cover the 

 sandy waste in other parts, relieved by lusty plants of 

 dock and nettle and yellow ragwort. On the Benacre 

 dunes the sea-holly seems to have disappeared ; not a 

 single plant could I find between the Covehithe cliffs 

 and Kessingland. Neither does the pink and white 

 sea-convolvulus creep among the stems of the marram- 

 grass and sand-sedge. But one plant I had not met 

 with elsewhere on the Suffolk shore was to be seen at 

 Benacre. The Danish scurvy-grass, a near relative of 

 the common scurvy-grass which usually frequents 

 muddy shores, was growing freely on the sand-dunes. 

 The species is an unattractive one, but it has interesting 

 associations, as its name indicates, from its medicinal 

 use in mediaeval times. 



