The Call of the Wildflower

did from the c

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y of the sea has a most genial and stimulating effect upon its grandchildren the flowers, not those only that are peculiar to the beach, but also t

en in the extreme; in fact they are the nursery-ground of a number of interesting flowers, including some very rare ones; and in certain places, where the stones are intersected by banks of turf, the eye is surprised by a veritable gar

d spots the gay mantle thrown over the stony strand is visible at the first glance in a wonderful blending of colours-the gold of horned poppy, stonecrop, melilot, and kidney vetch; the white of sea-campion; the delicate pink of thrift; and the fiery reds and blues of the gorgeous viper's bugloss-and when a nearer scrutiny is made, a number of minute p

now, owing to the enclosures made for ship-building works, has been all but exterminated. "This," wrote the author of the Flora of Sussex (1907) "is one of the most beautiful of our wildflowers, and is found in Britain at Shoreham only. Fortunately it is very difficult to extirpate any of the leguminos?, and it may therefore be hoped that it may long continue to adorn the beach at Shoreham." The hope seems likely to be frustrated. Among the rubble of concrete slabs, and piles of timber, only three or four tufts of the trefoil were surviving

y of Brighton (1860); and here we may still find such plants as the sea-radish, a large coarse crucifer with yellow flowers and queer knotted seed-pods; the blue clary, or wild-sage, running riot in great profusion; the fragrant soft-leaved fennel; the strange star-thistle (calcitrapa), so-called from its fancied resemblance to an ancient and diabolical military instrument, the cal

shy leaved samphire, once sought after for a pickle, and ever famous through the reference in King Lear to "one who gathers samphire,

r have not as yet laid a heavy and ruinous hand. On some of the more spacious of these pebbly beaches, as on tha

e all

y places, w

of believin

as we wish o

a search soon reveals the presence of floral treasures, the first of which is a rather rare member of the Pink family, the soapwort, which I had long sought in vain until I met with it growing in abundance close to the outskirts of Eastbourne, where it roots so luxuriantly in the loose shingles as to make one

traight out of the bare stones, and thrives exceedingly when the folk who stroll along the shore can so far restrain their destructive tendencies as not to hack and mangle it. In its company, perhaps, or in similar si

to the flower-lover the little shelf of shingle which forms the beach is full of charm. Here, growing along the grassy margin of brackish pools, and itself so like a flowering grass that a sharp eye is needed to detect it, one may find that singular umbelliferous plant-not at all resembling the other members of its tribe-the slender hare's-ear (bupleurum tenui

r to Pagham, along a sandy shore fringed with very luxuriant tamarisk-bushes; and when one reaches the stony reef where further progress is barred by the waters or sand-shoals of the "Harbour," the little pink, which bears a superficial resemblance to thrift, will be seen springing up freely among the pebbles. We are told that only one of its blossoms opens at

h back from the shore rarely attract the footsteps even of the hardiest walkers. It is only when there has been a murder in one of those solitary spots-or at least something that the newspapers can describe as "dramatic" or "sensational"-that the holiday-folk in the neighbouring towns forsake for a day or two the pleasures of pier or parade, and sally forth over the stony