only in their general aspect, but also in their properties. We have thirteen British species of goosefoot, several of which grow near the sea. There is the shrubby sea-side goosefoot (Chenopodium fruticosum), a somewhat rare plant, yet found on the coasts of Devonshire, Cornwall, Suffolk, and Dorsetshire, and also on the Norfolk shore. It was formerly termed the shrubby saltwort, and was first discovered in this country in the time of Ray, by Sir Thomas Browne, the author of the Religio Medici. It is an elegant evergreen, and its leaves have a saltish and somewhat acrimonious flavour. The annual sea-side goosefoot, or sea-side blite (Chenopodium maritimum), is a very common plant on our sea-shores, and the many-spiked goosefoot (Chenopodium botryodes), with its triangular leaves, grows on some cliffs by the sea; but there is one kind, equally frequent with the former, growing especially on the coast, but found also on waste places and on walls, far from the shore, and it certainly deserves its most inelegant name of stinking goosefoot. It may at once be known from all the other kinds by its odour, which is such as would not induce us to gather it. Its small leaves and stems are greasy to the touch, and covered over with a powdery substance, which, when bruised, causes the offensive scent. Professor Hooker well compares this to the smell of putrid fish. Nor can we remember any plant of our lands more disgusting in perfume, except some of the mushroom tribe. Yet this goosefoot is a really valuable anti-spasmodic medicine, and is held in great repute, not only by village doctors, but large quantities were, until recently, sent to Covent Garden market from some extensive plantation of this vegetable at Mitcham. Several of the goosefoots are commonly boiled as greens for the table, and several are planted for this purpose. Our own sea-side goosefoot, is one of the best of our native species for food. The plant called Good King Henry, or mercury goosefoot (Chenopodium Bonus Henricus), a very common kind, growing on waste places and way-sides, with large dark green triangular arrow-shaped leaves, was formerly very generally sown in gardens for spinach, and is still planted in some places, for it is very hardy, requiring little care, and early coming into leaf. The name of good was probably given to it, however, rather because of its supposed virtue in healing wounds, than for its excellency as a table vegetable. Our sea-side species yields soda, and is often gathered for this, with the saltwort and other maritime plants, from shores where it abounds. This substance is largely produced by several of the orache tribe; and indeed, almost all our sea-side vegetation furnishes it in a greater or less degree. Some of the goosefoots are common articles of food in Peru; and when the mummy cases of the ancient Guanches of Teneriffe have been opened, it has been found, that among the aromatic plants used there in ancient days to make this mortal frame immortal, the Mexican goosefoot (Chenopodium ambrosioides) was constantly present. The plant of our waste places near the sea, called the stinking goosefoot, has been remarked by M. Chevalier, to give out pure ammonia, during its whole existence. Dr. Lindley remarks on this fact: "This is the only observation on record, of a gaseous exhalation of azote, by vegetables; and the facility with which this principle is abandoned by ammonia, may perhaps explain the presence of azotic products in the vegetable kingdom." Of all our sea-side plants, boiled for table vegetables, the one which seems to the writer of these pages most to deserve commendation for the purpose, is the sea-beet, (Beta maritima.) Unlike the silvery glaucous foliage of the orache and goosefoot, the leaves of this plant are of a deep rich green colour, very succulent, and wavy at the edges. The stems are angular, grow down near the ground, and are one or two feet long, and the flowers are green, and appear in August. When properly boiled, it has the appearance and full flavour of the cultivated spinach; indeed it is rather superior to that plant, but if not gathered while young, the vegetable becomes too strongly bitter. It is not general around our coasts, but in some places in England it is very abundant, and it grows also on the southern shores of Scotland. At Dovor it is plentiful, not only on the cliffs, but on the upper part of the beach, where a grassy spot may sometimes be seen, on which the bright blue viper's bugloss rises above its prickly stems, and no less prickly leaves; and the lilac mallow, and the yellow dandelion and hawkweed, unite with clumps of orache and sea-beet to make a green and gay patch on the stones. On some parts of the coast it is gathered from the cliff or the muddy shore for food, yet it is often left unnoticed. The English proverb, which our old writer, Fuller, so often quotes, "Fetched far, and cost dear, is fit for ladies," applies, seemingly, as well to the other portion of humanity as to the fair sex. This sea-side spinach is certainly very wholesome, and if it were not a wild plant would be in much request. The roots of all the beets contain much saccharine matter, and the wellknown experiments of the French on another species, the red beet, for the purpose of obtaining sugar, need not be referred to. No such quantity of sugary substance is yielded by other European esculents as by this. This plant is also common as a culinary root, and is also frequently used for salads, and its deep red colour deserves the name given to the whole tribe by our Saxon ancestors; for "beet" appears to be the corruption of their word "bet," which signified "red." The Italians call the plant Barba Brettola, and the French term it Betterave. The juice of our common beet is said to cure head-ache, and if drawn up the nostrils to occasion sneezing. We have not more than three or four shrubs which can be called natives of our British shores; the yellow furze bush, however, (Ulex Europaus,) may be very well planted there, for it will bear all the rough winds and the salt spray, and still be rich with golden blossoms almost throughout the year. One of our most beautiful sea-side shrubs is the tree mallow, (Laratera arborea,) and even this is better known by its place in our shrubberies than by its frequent growth on the cliffs of our island; it, however, adorns some of the rocks on the south and south-west shores of England and the eastern shores of Scotland. The Rev. J. A. Johns, in his interesting work, called " A Week at the Lizard," says of it-" It is a large and picturesque plant, and chooses to perch itself on the insulated rocks all along this coast, in which |