THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
165 
satin flowers. In the bog is another, the Bog Stitchwort, S. uli- 
ginosa, with broad leaves and tiny insignificant flowers. The Sand- 
worts are a numerous and puzzling family, hut one of their number 
may be found almost anywhere on the sea coast, for it loves the 
rock, the drifted sand, and the salt marsh alike, but it nowhere 
thrives except near the sea. This is the sea-side Sandwort, or sea- 
side Alsine, Arenaria marina, or Spergularia marina. The stems 
are prostrate, the leaves semi-cylindrical, with accompanying white 
chaffy stipules, the flowers lilac and purple. You may pass over 
carpets of this pretty plant in rambling amongst the rocks, and yet 
know nothing of its beauty, for the flowers close soon after noon on 
dull days and are never open after four p.m. The Purple Alsine, 
Arenaria rubra, is a good imitation of the sea-side Alsine, but a 
smaller and less succulent plant, not at all in love with the sea, for 
it grows on sand and gravel almost everywhere. They are pro- 
bably two forms of the same species. Closely allied to the Arenarias 
and Stellarias are the Mouse-ear duckweeds, the handsomest of 
which is the Field Chickweed, Cerastium arvense , a plentiful plant 
in a few districts, usually found on sandy banks in the full sun. It 
is so like the Great Stitchwort, that it may be easily mistaken for it, 
but on comparison, will be found to differ in many particulars, not 
the least important being the darker colour of its leaves, those of 
the Great Stitchwort being of a most delicate light green. The 
pretty silvery-leaved plant employed for edging flower-beds, Ceras- 
tium tomentosum, the “ serastum ” of the rustic who has picked up 
a few garden names, is the prettiest of all the family, and a good 
type of them too when allowed to become half wild and produce, in 
spring, its exquisitely finished white satin flowers. It is a native of 
Southern Europe. 
More humble than all these, but equally worthy of notice, are 
those little tufty moss-like plants, the Spurreys, of which we shall 
select four for special notice. For the first go and search at the 
foot of an old brick wall, or ou a damp cinder-heap, or amongst a 
lot of plants in flower-pots, for a mossy tuft of bluish-green vegeta- 
tion, dotted with tiny grey flowers. It is the Procumbent Pearl- 
wort, Sagina procumbens, an Alpine plant, which condescends to 
make itself at home anywhere, and usually prefers to clothe with 
its glossy green mossy cushions spots where no other plant could 
grow. In warm spots on sand and brick it usually remains green 
all the winter, but is best warth finding while in flower. 
A plant very closely resembling it, but quite distiuct and far 
more beautiful, is the Pearlwort Spurrey, Spergula saginoides , 
which occurs in plenty on the Scottish highlands, and might be 
sought with some hope of success on Dartmoor, and even on the 
Bagshot Sand. But failing all means of obtaining wild specimens, 
you may secure tame ones by cultivating the so-called Spergula pili- 
fera of gardens, which is merely a large flowering variety of the 
Pearlwort Spurrey, introduced to English gardens in 1850 as a 
substitute for grass on lawns. It never acquired any solid popu- 
larity, and yet it really does form, when properly managed, the most 
beautiful lawn imaginable ; bright as the best grass newly mown, 
June. 
