STITCHWORTS— continued. 
its position from one side to the other at each node. These lines of hairs have 
been variously explained, either as serving to draw off the rain-water from each 
successive cup formed by the bases of the upper leaves, which are sessile, and thus 
keep the leaf-surface dry, or as absorbing the moisture by the basal portion 
of each hair. 
All the four species represented in our Plate have four-angled stems. Stellaria 
uliginosa Murray, on the extreme left of the picture, inhabiting wet places, is a 
perennial varying considerably in size, slightly glaucous, with small lanceolate 
leaves callous at their tips and ciliate at the base, membranous bracts, and petals 
shorter than the sepals. The larger S. graminea Linne, which is figured next to it, 
is a straggling plant, growing in dry heathy places, with sessile, linear-lanceolate, 
acute leaves, ciliate at the base, and flowers from half an inch to three-quarters of an 
inch across, in which the deeply bilobed petals are as long as, or longer than, the 
three-veined sepals. After each row of stamens has moved upwards, burst its 
anthers, and bent outwards and downwards, the styles elongate and go through the 
same movements, so that, although, with honey unconcealed, the blossoms are 
visited alike by flies, beetles, bees, moths, and butterflies, if not cross-pollinated, 
they can be self-pollinated. The less common S. palustris Retzius, which occupies 
the centre of the Plate, is, as its name indicates, an inhabitant of marshy ground, is 
glaucous, and has no cilia on its leaves or bracts. 
The most attractive member of the genus is S. Holostea Linne, which appears at 
the right of our Plate. Its stems do not, as do those of most herbaceous perennials, 
die down to the ground in winter, but though dead to all appearance, send out 
delicate green shoots in March, so that the plant appears to have made a very rapid 
growth, whilst its April blossoming has earned it the name of Cuckoo-flower. 
Nearly sixty popular names testify to the notice and esteem which this species 
obtained in former times. “ Snap-stalks,” “ Tongue-grass,” “ Satin-flower,” and 
“ Lady’s White Petticoat ” refer only to its outward appearance ; but “ Stitchwort,” 
“ Break-bones,” “ All Bone,” and the scientific Holostea (from the Greek 0A.09, 
holos , whole ; dcrreov, osteon , bone), which dates from Dioscorides, refer to its former 
imaginary uses, according to the doctrine of signatures. Gerard can only suggest 
as an explanation of this last name “ the figure called Antonomia,” i.e. a lucus a non 
lucendo ; and explains Stitchwort as referring to the use of an infusion of the plant 
against pain in the side. Still earlier, perhaps, it was supposed to cure the “ stich ” 
or sting of venomous reptiles. Holostea , however, probably means that, as the 
nodes of the plant are swollen like the extremities of limb-bones and are markedly 
articulated, it was to be presumed useful to bring about the knitting or stitching 
of broken bones. Its pretty flowers, which contrast so charmingly with its grass- 
green foliage in our Spring hedgerows, are so markedly protandrous that they 
are probably exclusively entomophilous. 
