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STITCHWORT. CHICKWEED. STELLARIA. 



COMMON CHICKWEED. Stellaria media. 



Plate 5, fig. 15. 

 Leaves ovate. Stem drooping. 



This humble plant is well known to bird fanciers, and though 

 looked upon as a lowly weed, yet it has properties that entitle 

 it to our notice. It is an annual plant, in flower almost 

 throughout the year, and grows in almost every situation, in 

 damp meadows, and on dry banks, in hedge-rows and over 

 gardens and varies its appearance so much that the little 

 weed of the walks can scarcely be known as the long, strag- 

 gling, rampant plant of the moist bank. When luxuriant it 

 has almost always ten stamens, but when stunted often but 

 five, or even three. It may be known at once by its stem, 

 upon which is a thick row of white hairs, which changes its 

 direction at each pair of leaves, being first on one side of the 

 stem, and then at the other. The leaf stalks are somewhat 

 hairy, but the leaves, except the youngest of them, smooth. 

 The flowers are upright, and open from nine in the morning 

 till noon ; but if it rains they do not open. After rain they 

 become pendant ; but in the course of a few days rise again. 

 It is a remarkable instance of the sleep of plants ; for every 

 night the leaves approach in pairs, including within their 

 upper surfaces the tender rudiments of the new shoots ; and 

 the uppermost pair but one, at the end of the stalk, is fur- 

 nished with longer leaf stalks than the others, so that they can 

 close upon the terminating pair, and protect the end of the 

 branch. The young shoots and leaves, when boiled, are 

 similar to spinach, and are equally wholesome. It is a grate- 

 ful food to small birds and young chickens, from which cir- 

 cumstance it is called Chickweed. 



GREATER STITCHWORT. Stellaria holostea. 



Plate 5, fig. 16. 

 Stem upright. Petals twice as long as the calyx. 



In hedge-banks, woods, and thickets, a foot high, and 

 flowers in May. It is an upright brittle plant, with very 



