SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 27 



And yet its banks too smooth and steep 

 To be o'erbrowsed by the sheep, 

 Withal are slanted very greenly ; 

 And flowers and grasses so serenely 

 Grow up them, that I ween the sea 

 Whereto their dewed faces be, 

 Doth serve them for another sky, 

 As warm and blue as that on high." 



We have no marine grasses, yet we have some 

 essentially maritime, and others peculiar to sandy 

 districts, grasses which are so valuable to our 

 shores, that we should be unwilling to look on 

 them with careless eye. They might speak to us 

 of the providential care of the Almighty Creator 

 and Preserver of the world, and are among those 

 silent utterances of the universe which show forth 

 his praise. Some are to be found on almost all 

 our coasts : some, in small green patches, lie like 

 oases among the barren sands or shingle. They 

 show God's care over minutest things, and so 

 should have their cheering influence over our 

 spirits while the great element itself is, as Keats 

 said, "no mean comforter, while the earth is our 

 throne, and the sea, like a mighty minstrel, play- 

 ing before it, able, like David's harp, to make such 

 as we forget almost the tempest cares of life." 



Most persons who frequent the coast have re- 

 marked the sand sedges and sand grasses so often 

 grouped or scattered there. Thus we have our 

 sea-side barley, sea wheat-grass, sea cat's-tail, and 

 other grasses, besides several of the rush and reed 

 tribe ; all contributing, in a lesser degree, to bind 

 down the driving sands, and some more important 

 ones which will be named. Some of the grasses 

 and sedges of the salt marshes, at a little distance 

 from the sea, afford a saline vegetation very ser- 



