The TOUHC HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Paet 54. MAY, 1884. Vol. 5. 



THE STITCHWORTS 



( Stellar ia). 

 By J. P. Soutteh, Bishop Auckland. 



^ C TT7 HO sawe evir so feyr or so glad 



* Y a day, 

 And how sote this season is entring into 

 May ? 



Lo how the trees grenyth that nakid wer, 



and nothing 

 Bare this month afore but their summer 



clothing ! 



Lo how Nature makith for them everichone ! 

 And as many as ther be he forgettith none ! 

 Lo how the season of the yere and Aver ill 

 showris 



Doith the bushis, burgyn out blossoms and 

 flouris ! 



Lo the prymerosis how fresh they ben to 

 sene ! 



And many other flouris among the grassis 

 grene. 



Lo how they spryng, and sprede, and of 



divers hue i 

 Beholdith, and seith both rede, white and 



blue! 



That lusty bin and comfortabill for mann'ys 

 sight ! 



For I sey for myself it makith my hert to 

 light." — Chaucer. 

 There is scarcely a prettier sight 

 on a bright May morning, when the 

 lambs are sporting on the daised mead, 

 that what is furnished by the eye rest- 

 ing on the immaculate purity of the 



star-like blossoms of the greater stitch- 

 wort {Stellar ia holostea), which so 

 abundantly fringes the hedgerows. 

 Occurring frequently in considerable 

 patches, and scrambling half-way up 

 the sloping hedgebank, it looks at a 

 distance like a white sheet spread out 

 to bleach in the sunshine. The genus 

 Stellaria, of which we have six indig- 

 enous species, is a very natural group 

 of plants having a well-marked family 

 likeness, they are all weak, straggling 

 herbs, with opposite leaves and pure 

 white spreading star-like flowers. S, 

 holostea is perennial, producing in 

 autumn numerous barren branches, 

 which in spring lengthen out and pro- 

 duce the flowers and then die down. 

 The lower part of the stem is remark- 

 ably slender, being scarcely thicker 

 than stout sewing thread; in winter 

 it looks perfectly dead, being brown, 

 shrivelled, and covered with the 

 withered remnants of former leaves, 

 but it is tough and wiry, whereas the 

 flower-bearing portion is green and 

 succulent, three times the thickness of 

 the under portion and excessively 

 brittle. It would be impossible for 

 such a weak straggling stem to rise 



