32 SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 



look. Few of our native plants are more con- 

 spicuous than this, as its tall stem rises four or 

 five feet in height, and its long leaves are so 

 glaucous, that they look remarkable for their 

 blueness of tint, even long before we come near 

 them. This plant may be known from the mat- 

 weed by its leaves, which are quite flat, and rather 

 broad and slightly notched at the edges; but it 

 chooses for its growth just the same situation 

 as that. Its roots are even tougher and longer, 

 and they form a superior matwork under the soil 

 to those of any other plant. Knapp remarks of 

 it, " This fine grass is not the promiscuous produc- 

 tion of all our sea-coasts, but we find it attached 

 to but a few places, and we may seek along hun- 

 dreds of miles of our coasts, and be disappointed in 

 the end. We have seen it in Norfolk ; but at the 

 mouth of the Tees in Durham, called the Snook 

 of Seaton, it abounds, producing in that situation 

 a larger number of spikes than we have seen else- 

 where." A coarse sort of fabric was formerly 

 made of its leaves ; hence its botanic name of 

 Elymus is taken from a Greek word, signifying 

 to cover. The foliage is pungent in flavour, and 

 though, in analysing the soluble matter of the 

 grass, Sir Humphry Davy found it to contain 

 more than one-third of its weight in sugar, yet 

 none of our domestic animals will eat it. And so 

 the plant grows uninjured, and spreads life around 

 on the else desert sands: for under its shadow 

 rises up many a tuft of grass and tiny flower, 

 which can find a soil firm enough around its roots 

 to spring and blossom. 



The Sea-carex, or Sedge (Carex arenaria), by 

 its very long and creeping roots, is another of the 



