S8 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
loose sand. Stems usually only a few inches long, but sometimes 
1 foot or more. Leaves f to 1J inch across, very thick and fleshy, 
with the basal lobes rounded. Peduncles longer than the leaves. 
Practeoles very broad, the outer one at least a little shorter than the 
calyx ; the two outermost sepals larger and broader than the others. 
Corolla shaped like that of C. Sepium, 1^ inch across, pale purplish- 
pink, with pale-yellowish rays. Capsules nearly as large as a hazel- 
nut. Seeds about the size of peppercorns, globular - trigonous, 
black, dim, but smooth unless examined under a very powerful lens. 
Plant deep-green, shining, glabrous. 
Sea Bindweed. 
French, Liseron Soldanelle. German, Mem •strands Winde. 
This is one of the prettiest of our seashore plants, and shares, in common with the 
rest of its family, a reputation in rustic pharmacy ; indeed, but few of our wild plants 
have not some virtue concealed within their substance, which has been employed with 
more or less success. It is only since the science of chemistry has proved that the 
active principles of these vegetable productions are the same in many plants, and can 
be exti-acted by chemical processes, that the practice of making infusions of all sorts 
of herbs and weeds, and attributing a special efficacy to each, has been gradually 
abandoned for the more convenient method of administering the valuable principles to 
be found in nature's laboratory in smaller quantities and a less troublesome form. 
The young shoots of the Sea Bindweed were formerly gathered by the people on the 
southern coast and pickled as a substitute for samphire : they are salt and bitter in 
flavour, even when thus prepared, and ai*e probably not wholesome. 
Tribe II.— CUSCUTE/E. 
Leafless plants, parasitical on the stems of other plants. 
Carpels united into a compound syncarpous ovary. Embryo 
without cotyledons. 
GENUS II— C U S C U T A. Tournef. 
Calyx 5-partite, coloured. Corolla persistent, bcllsbaped-salver- 
shaped ; tube with 5 small scales ; limb 1- or 5-lobed. Stamens 
1 or 5j inserted in the middle of the corolla-tube between or above 
the scales. Styles 2, or 1- and more or less 2-cleft. Capsule sub- 
globose, 2-cellcd, circumscissily dehiscent. Seeds 2 in each cell of 
the capsule. 
Leadess annuals, with thread-like stems twining round those of 
other plants, into which they insert adventitious roots. Flowers 
in globular heads or head-like corymbs, white or pink. 
The origin of the name of this genus of plants is said by Dr. Mayne to be a 
corruption ol the Greek word icaaovda (kassvtha), from the Arabic chasuth or chessuth. 
