24 SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 



Among the clefts of the rocks we may, in the 

 months of July and August, see the tufted pink 

 blossoms of the common Thrift, or sea Gillyflower 

 (Statice armeria), called by the French, Spanish 

 turf, and by the Italians, Ladies' pins ; while our 

 old English writers term it Ladies' cushions, and 

 sea-grass. We have the name of Statice from the 

 Greeks, but they probably applied it to another 

 plant. It signified to stop or arrest, and is now 

 appropriated to an extensive genus, whose wiry 

 and entangled stems seem well formed to stop the 

 hasty footstep of the passenger over the cliff, or 

 sandy ground, or muddy shore, where they grow. 

 But the familiar names of our wild flowers those 

 by which they are known in country places are 

 often expressive of some hue, or form, or supposed 

 virtue, or they tell a tale of spots where they grow ; 

 and the old name of thrift is a good one for the 

 common plant of our sea-shore, for it needs no rich 

 soil, but grows on loftiest mountains and on boggy 

 shores, and in crevices of maritime rocks, through- 

 out Europe, as well as in North America. Lightfoot 

 well designates it "the most humble and most lofty 

 of plants." On some of the highest of the Scottish 

 mountains this little flower rears its head, and 

 Balfour says that he has gathered it from the 

 summit of Muich Dhui, a mountain only second in 

 height to Ben Nevis. It has been proved that 

 this, and some similar plants, differ in their consti- 

 tuents according to the situations in which they 

 grow. When adorning the sea-shore, they contain 

 salts of soda and iodine ; but when they grow in- 

 land they lose the iodine, and exchange soda for 

 potash. We have all seen the pink tufts and grass- 

 like leaves of the thrift growing around the city 



