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fleshy plants grow near the sea, but I think I may fairly say 

 that our characteristic sea-side plants are glaucous and fleshy, 

 almost without exception. 



First, what is "glaucous." It is a colour 2X once difficult to 

 describe, and impossible to mistake if once seen. Babington 

 defines it as "green with a whitz>/^-blue lustre," and Balfour 

 as " covered with a pale green bloom." Most of us can now 

 recall the colour, and if not, we must try to find some plant 

 which will teach us, once for all, the nature of this most cha- 

 racteristic hue. Glaucium luteum, the Yellow-Horned Poppy, 

 a very noteworthy sea-side plant, is likely to be the first you 

 will find here, and takes its generic name from the prevailing 

 colour of the plant. Sea Purslane, Sea Holly, and Sea Grom- 

 well are also fine examples of the same colour. 



"Fleshy" needs less explanation, as the Samphire we may 

 gather here will at once occur to you all as an example. You 

 will find the leaves of the Horned Poppy also very fleshy, and 

 the others I mentioned just now illustrate the same peculiarity. 



Now with regard to the flowers, which as I said, are incon- 

 spicuous, or this-that-or-the-other-zly>^. My example of the 

 Horned Poppy does not fail us here, though it illustrates the 

 other properties better. The yellow is rather too vivid to be 

 -ished ; but it contrasts badly with the intense yellow of the 

 buttercup, or the decided pale yellow of the primrose. But 

 the Samphire, the Sea-Holly, the Sea-Campion, and the Sea- 

 Gromwell, with many others, have flowers whose colours look 

 faded or as if seen through a fog, or perhaps still more 

 perfectly, like the surface of a freshly gathered plum when 

 the beauty of its purple sides is at once exalted and depressed 

 by the presence of the bloom. Sometimes as is the case with 

 the Sea-Purslane and Sea-Campion, the whole plant appears 

 as if dusted over with a whitish powder. 



And again, as regards their attachment to the soil. You 

 will generally find with the decidedly sea-side plants, that 

 this is one of two forms. Either by a very strong deep tap- 

 root, often ludicrously disproportioned to the size of the 

 plant belonging to it, as you may easily find out for yourselves 

 in the case of a youngish specimen of the Horned-Poppy, 

 or else by a number of short, and rather thin, but strong 

 fibres. This last form chiefly obtains in the plants of salt 

 marshes, but is not exclusively appropriated by them. In the 



