SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 31 



using botanical terms, renders it undesirable in a 

 little volume of this kind, to dwell at length on 

 any but those which seem, in an especial manner, 

 to have been given by the great Creator to our 

 shores for the purpose of holding them down. Of 

 these, the common Sea-reed, or Mat weed (Ammo- 

 phila arundinacea) , is the most useful, because it 

 is so common a grass. It is entirely a maritime 

 grass, never found but on loose, driving sands, or 

 on such as were formerly so ; and as these by 

 degrees become consolidated, so, when the grass 

 has effected the purpose for which it was designed, 

 it gradually pines away, and we find it no more. 

 Very few of its seeds are perfected, but such as 

 ripen fall on the soil where they grow ; for, unlike 

 other grasses of this genus, this plant is destitute 

 of the long tufts of wool at the base of each floret, 

 which serve as wings to the seed, and the tiny tufts 

 formed on this are insufficient for the purpose of 

 bearing it away on the winds. Its creeping root 

 is often twenty feet long, and it has a stiff, green- 

 ish-yellow stem, about two or three feet high, 

 and long, narrow, glaucous leaves. It flowers in 

 July. It is often manufactured into door-mats and 

 brushes, and in the Hebrides it is used for various 

 purposes. It is twisted into ropes, woven into 

 mats for pack-saddles, and into bags for holding 

 meal and grain ; while a common sort of hat is 

 made of its straw. It has also been planted in 

 many places for preventing sand-drift. 



Xot less serviceable to the shores on which it 

 grows, though far less frequent a plant than the 

 matweed, is the Upright Sea Lyme-grass (Etymus 

 arenarius}. This is a grass which, if the reader 

 should chance to meet with, he cannot easily over- 



