88 SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 



familiar with this common plant. The latter 

 species was in former days in much use as a salad, 

 but its pungency is not agreeable to the taste of 

 modern days. Both species have leaves something 

 like the foot of a bird, hence their botanic name 

 was formed of the two Greek words crow and foot. 

 They grow round the stem in such a manner as 

 has led to their familiar name, " The Star of the 

 Earth." On the beach of Dovor, the common 

 wart-cress is abundant ; we might find a hundred 

 plants in five minutes' walk. Both kinds have 

 seed vessels beautifully crested with minute 

 tubercles. 



A far more showy, and indeed a beautiful flower 

 of our salt marshes, is the Marsh-mallow (Malva 

 officinalis], with its soft downy greyish-green leaves, 

 and large blossoms of a delicate rose-colour. This 

 plant is thought to be the Hibiscus of Virgil, and 

 has been used medicinally in all countries in which 

 medicine has been cultivated. The mucilage 

 contained in every part of the plant renders it 

 valuable, and so much of this is contained in the 

 roots, that when they are boiled in water they give 

 out half their weight in a glutinous substance, 

 which is thought to be nearly allied to gum arabic 

 or starch. The Marsh-mallow is very rare on 

 Scottish shores, and indeed is not plentiful on the 

 English coast, but it is one of the prettiest of all 

 the flowers of the salt marsh. 



We might tell of one or two ferns which, like 

 the sea-spleenwort (Asplenium marinum], festoon 

 the sea-caves and clefts of rocks with their firm 

 dark green fronds, or leaves, as the unscientific 

 would term them; but they are so difficult to 



