well-known ornament of some maritime spots, and in many parts of the eastern shores of England it is abundant. The Rev. W. R. Drummond has well described it ::

"The Eryngo here

Sits as a queen among the scanty tribes

Of vegetable race. Around her neck

A gorgeous ruff of leaves, with snowy points,
Averts all rough intrusion.

On her brow

She binds a crown of amethystine hue,

Bristling with spicula, thick interwove

With clustering florets, whose light anthers dance

In the fresh breeze like tiny topaz gems.

Here the sweet rose would die.

But she imbibes

From arid sands, and salt sea dew-drops, strength.
The native of the beach, by nature formed

To dwell among the ruder elements."

The sea eryngo (Eryngium maritimum) has a stem about a foot high, much branched, with prickly strongly-veined leaves, resembling the foliage of the holly, and dense heads of blue flowers. This flower flourishes too on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland; and travellers tell us that it grows equally well along the European and African shores of the Mediterranean. It is known on the several parts of our coast by a variety of names, as the sea hulver, sea holly, and sea holme. Our common prickly holly formerly bore also the names of hulver and holme, as well as that of scarlet oak, and the general resemblance of a branch of this plant to the holly bough, naturally led to its familiar names. Not that the reader must expect any similarity between the delicate waxen-like flowers of our evergreen tree, and the blossom of the eryngo; for this is more like our wild thistle flower, and so much so, that the author has heard children on the coast call the plant the blue sea thistle. The roots of the eryngo were

formerly candied and sold by confectioners as a sweetmeat, and though they have lost their old renown for their strengthening and stimulating virtues, and no modern poet like those of older days sings their praises, yet there are persons who still sell the candied eryngo roots in London, though they have not so many purchasers as in the days of Queen Elizabeth. There existed till lately, and probably exists still, in the town of Colchester in Essex, an establishment where these roots are prepared, and it was in this very town that these candied comfits first originated. More than two centuries since, an apothecary named Robert Buxton, who had a high idea of their medicinal properties, prepared the root in this way for general use. These plants grow on the sandy soils of Arabia, and the Arabs regard them as an excellent restorative. The use of plants as medicine was known long before men thought of seeking remedies among metallic or mineral drugs, and in Boerhave's time this plant was not only recommended by him, as a tonic, but seems to have been for many years generally so regarded. Linnæus says that the young flowering shoots are eaten in Sweden, boiled as asparagus, and describes them as a good vegetable. The young shoots of several of our wild plants are equally good for this purpose, and none are better than those of the wild burdock, which may be known by its very large leaves, purple thistle-shaped blossoms, and above all by the spiny flower-cups which children call burrs. It grows by most waysides.

We have but two species of eryngo, and the other (Eryngium campestre) is rare, though found occasionally in sandy fields: it is more bushy and slender

than the sea-side kind, and was found originally in Ray's time truly wild in England near Plymouth, where it still grows. It has also been seen on some spots near the sea at the north of England, but it has probably been introduced there in ballast. Throughout Italy, France, and Flanders it is a most common flower, and so general are the eryngos in North America, that nearly one hundred species have been described as growing wild, and one is in so frequent use as a medicine, for the relief of hysterical complaints, as to have acquired the familiar name of Fit-weed.

But, quitting for awhile the velvet-like sands which border our sea, we must in imagination linger by the cliffs near them. Tall venerable cliffs are they, on whose brow time seems to have written no changes, and which might give to England its name of Albion, as well as they did in days of yore. They have their own peculiar herbage, besides being decked by the milkwort, and the rest-harrow, and the beautiful yellow chlora, plants of the chalk soil everywhere throughout our land. All up their sides we see the green patch here and there,

"And down their slanted glory move

Scents from the flowers that grow above."

One of the plants which is not wild elsewhere, is the sea-side cabbage, or cliff cabbage, as it is sometimes called; the Brassica oleracea of the botanist. It is not a common plant, though in some places very abundant. On the cliffs at Dover, as well as on some portions of the beach, it is plentiful, and growing up beyond the reach of the waves, yet requiring the saline air for its production, the clumps of this plant, with its glaucous green leaves,

give a peculiar tint and character to the vegetation of the spot. It is sufficiently like the young

cabbage-plant of the kitchen garden to be recognised at once; but few who look upon its bluish small scattered leaves and handsome pale yellow flowers, much like the wild mustard or charlock, are aware that to this sea colewort we owe all the kinds of cultivated cabbage, the leaves and flowers of which are eaten at our tables; and that red and white cabbage, and the giant cow-cabbage, and

the delicate brocoli, had so humble an origin, not to exclude that familiar vegetable, of which Dr. Johnson most unsentimentally declared, "Of all the flowers of the garden, I like the cauliflower." The Doctor should have lived at Tarragona, where the cauliflower is said to reach the enormous weight of forty pounds. No instance exists in which a vegetable is so altered by culture from its original condition. Our kitchen-gardens, with their compact cabbages, their Brussels sprouts and Savoys, indicate this; but this is little compared to the tall Cæsarean cow-cabbage, which from its arborescent nature is called the tree-kale, and which in La Vendée is said to be sixteen feet high; while one of its varieties, the palm-kale, is commonly ten or twelve feet in height, with a heart sweet and tender enough to fit it for the food of man, and leaves which furnish a plentiful nutriment for animals. Our cliff cabbage is frequently gathered from the heights in the neighbourhood where it is abundant, and is said to be a good boiled vegetable, but its uncooked leaves are very bitter to the taste. It was very early cultivated; indeed, from time immemorial some of its numerous varieties have been valued, though the common variety with a close compact heart, peculiarly called cabbage, was for some years imported from Holland into this country. Sir Anthony Ashley first cultivated it in England; but it was more than a century before its culture became so general as to render importation from Holland unnecessary. This grower of our esculent plant is said to have had a cabbage sculptured on his monument at Wimborne St. Giles, in Dorsetshire, in memory of this service rendered to his country.