34 SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 



rushlight in the cottage, and the homely chair, and 

 the useful basket might show. 



We might look on the reeds and rushes too with 

 the eye of a philosopher, as did Baron Humboldt, 

 when he saw the young Indian drawing a sweet 

 and plaintive accompaniment from an instrument 

 made of a series of reeds. " The Greeks said with 

 truth," observes this writer, " that reeds had con- 

 tributed to subjugate nations by furnishing arrows ; 

 to soften men's manners by the charm of music ; 

 and to unfold their understanding by affording the 

 first instruments for tracing letters." And we have 

 seen, too, that to reeds of the shore men are in- 

 debted for the very ground they tread on, and for 

 the clearness of the air which they breathe. 



Growing sometimes close by the sand-grasses, 

 sometimes on banks and among pastures at a little 

 distance, some of the pretty little flowers called 

 the sandworts are plentiful on our shores ; and 

 the name of the genus, arenaria, from Arena, sand, 

 is significant of the soils on which they grow. Far 

 away in sandy fields and on heath-lands, in woods, 

 in pastures, and on high mountains, thousands of 

 them are found in our summer months ; and one 

 of the species considered as peculiar to the sea- 

 shore, is, by many good botanists, thought to be 

 but a variety of the purple sandwort of our 

 gravelly or sandy lands. This is the Sea 

 Spurrey Sandwort (Arenaria marina], which is 

 very common near the sea, and, if the same as 

 the inland species, yet it is certainly usually larger 

 and stouter in its appearance when growing on 

 the coast. It has a small purple, star-like flower, 

 with fleshy stem, and leaves of equal succulence, 

 of semi- cylindrical shape, and scarcely thicker 



