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PLANTS COMMON TO BRITAIN.
[Chap. X.
1842
of plants, either identical with those of Britain, or representatives of them, than exists in any other country of the southern hemisphere. It is always interesting to meet with familiar objects where they are least expected, and to recognise, in the natural productions of a strange land, the same, or similar to those we have often seen elsewhere. Tierra del Fuego possesses, in common with Britain, the sea-pink or thrift (Statice Armeria); a primrose, so like our Primula farinosa that they are scarcely distinguishable; the common starwort or Callitriche, Montia fontana, Arenaria media, Erigeron alpinus, Gnaphalium luteo-album, Cardamine hirsuta, and Apium graveolens (celery), which, though a rank weed when it grows wild in England, is so wholesome and mild in Fuegia, probably from the absence of the sun's direct rays, that it affords an excellent salad. There are also the Hippuris vulgaris (mare's tail), Cerastium arvense, Sisymbrium Sophia, Lathyrus maritimus, Convolvulus sepium, Limosella aquatica, Epilobium tetragonum, Draba incana (a highland plant), Sagina procumbens, Galium Aparine (cleavers), the common Dandelion, Empetrum rubrum, which differs in the colour of the berries only from the Scottish crowberry, Plantago maritima, Chenopodium glaucum, Aira flexuosa, Phleum alpinum, Alopecurus alpinus, Agrostis alba, Poa nemoralis and pratensis, Festuca duriuscula, Triticum repens, and Lolium perenne, all well-known inhabitants of our shores, meadows, mountains, or woods. The affinity between
