SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 81 



is another little plant which the maritime botanist 

 looks for in June on some coasts. It has been 

 found on exposed sandy shores in Kent, and also 

 near Weymouth. We have several wild kinds of 

 medick in our fields, and on our way-sides. They 

 are all pea-shaped blossoms, remarkable after 

 flowering, for their broad flat sickle-shaped pods, 

 in some species twisted spirally. The flower of 

 the sea-shore medick is like those of most of the 

 genus, yellow ; though our common lucerne, which 

 is a species of this tribe, has pale purple blossoms. 

 The French call this Foin de Bourgogne ; it was 

 highly extolled by the Roman writers as a good 

 plant for fodder, and is grown both in this and in 

 continental countries. Another of the tribe, called 

 the Moon Medick, was the Cytisus of the ancient 

 writers. It grew in the country of the Medes, 

 and hence probably we derive the name Medick. 



The Cotton Weed (Diotis maritima} is common 

 enough on some of our sandy shores in the east or 

 south-east of England, though not sufficiently 

 general to be much known to any but botanists. 

 It is an autumn flower, and one which many would 

 overlook, for its little yellow blossoms are almost 

 hidden by the flower-cup. It well deserves its 

 English name, for it is really covered with a 

 cottony down. Hence Linnaeus called the flower 

 Filago, because it was enveloped with a delicate 

 thread, fila. 



The Sea- wormwood (Artemisia maritima) grows 

 along the shore and on the salt marshes in its 

 neighbourhood, and is bitter enough to remind us 

 of the Scripture expression, which marked this as 

 the most bitter of plants. It has in one variety 

 G 



