WALL PENNYWORT. 151 



The order to which the pennywort belongs, the Cras- 

 sulaceat, has not many British representatives. On its 

 more especially technical botanical characteristics it would 

 be altogether foreign to our present purpose to enlarge, 

 but one conspicuous feature we may mention, the thick 

 fleshy leaves of all the species included in it. Of this 

 feature the present plant affords a good illustration, and 

 this may be seen again in the foliage of the common 

 house-leek, the orpine or live-long, and the stone-crop. 

 This succulence enables the plants to thrive in localities 

 where most plants would wither and dry up, and thus causes 

 them to retain their vitality unimpaired for a long period. 



The common English name of the plant is -clearly 

 derived from the shape of the leaves, their rounded outline 

 being to some extent suggestive possibly of money. 

 The older writers were very great at finding these resem- 

 blances, and it is not always easy to feel the same satis- 

 faction in them that they appear to have done. This 

 particular idea has been a good deal worked, and a certain 

 amount of ambiguity may arise unless we are careful to 

 really distinguish species that have in name at least much 

 in common : thus we have the pennycress, the pennygrass, 

 the moneywort or herb-twopence, the marsh pennywort, 

 and others. The moneywort we have already figured. 

 The marsh pennywort is a small bog plant, and is 

 abundantly distributed throughout Britain, but has no 

 botanical affinity with the plant more especially under our 

 present consideration. Pennygrass is an old name for the 

 yellow rattle, the subject of another of our illustrations, 

 and was bestowed upon it from the form of its ripening 

 seed-vessels. The wall pennywort is by some old writers 

 called navelwort and kidneywort. 



