British Wild Flowers and Trees 223 



are so pretty on our sandy and chalky hills, are very 

 rarely grown— though they well might be in a garden of 

 native rock or heath and down plants. The very dwarf 

 trailing Frankenia laevis (Sea Heath) runs over stones, 

 and looks neat and mossy on a rock-garden. In the 

 Pink tribe, the scarce, single, wild Carnation (D. Caryo- 

 phyllus), D. plumarius, the parent of the garden pink, 

 and the Cheddar Pink, which thrives on an old wall, 

 D. deltoides, the maiden pink, the soapwort (Saponaria 

 officinalis), the Sea-bladder Campion (Silene maritima), 

 Silene acaulis, the beautiful little Alpine that clothes our 

 higher mountains, the Corn Cockle (Lychnis Githago), 

 the Ragged Robin, and the Alpine lychnis ; the vernal 

 sandwort (Arenaria verna), Arenaria cilata, found on 

 Ben Bulben, in Ireland, and Cerastium Alpinum are 

 among the prettiest. The last is as shaggy as a Skye 

 terrier, and does not grow more than an inch high. 



A pretty species of Flax is not a common plant in 

 British gardens, but one occurs wild in some of our 

 eastern counties, — Linum perenne, — a blue flowered 

 plant, of which there is a pure white variety, both very 

 pretty plants, quite hardy and perennial. The perennial 

 Flax, or any of its varieties, will be found to thrive in 

 any place where the grass is not mown as well as on 

 borders. The field flax is sometimes found wild with us, 

 but it is not a true native. Among the Malva tribe we 

 have several showyplants,but less worthy of garden culti- 

 vation, except it be Lavatera arborea (the tree Lavatera), 

 sparsely found along the south and west coasts. It is 



