Sea Flowers and Shrubs
The Saltings, or muddy salt marshes, which are more or less covered by salt water at high tide, have a rich and characteristic flora. Uniformly grey in winter, in May they are white with the flowers of the security-grass (Cochlearia anglica), in June pink with the flowers of thrift (Armeria maritima), in July and August purple with sea-lavender (Statice Limonium and brown with sea-purslane Atriplex portulacoides), in September golden with the flowers of the sea-aster or starwort (Aster tripolium), the purple ray florets – the typical Michaelmas daisy form being mostly wanting; the more brilliant golden samphire (Inula crithmoides), which flowers about the same time, is comparatively rare. The sea-plantain (Plantago maritima is common, but not so common as Triglochin maritimum, which grows with, and is often mistaken for, the plantain. The pale green aromatic Artemisia maritima and the bright flowered Glaux maritima, Sagina Maritima, and Arenaria peploides, with other interesting plants occur. The curious glass-wort (Salicornia Herbacea), whose shoots make an excellent pickle at the hands of the careful housewife, grows on the softer mud at the edge of the Saltings; it somewhat resembles its equally common colleague the common sea-blite (Suceda maritima). The seawalls are clothed with wheat-grass (Triticum junceum) and barley-grass (Hordeum maritimum), and topped with shrubby plants of goosefoot (Artiplex and Chenopodiım, spp.), and sea-bett (Beta maritima), frequently growing with the greatest luxuriousness. The marsh ditches and marshes are full of interesting plants, too numerous to mention here, and the remarkable Zostera marina grows in the bed of the estuary.
From the Osea Island to the Knowle channel this part of the river is still called Pont, the old name of the Blackwater used by Bede, Ralph de Coggeshall and other old authors being “Pant”, whence Panfield or Pantfield. Ralph de Coggeshall, writing of Ithancester or, as he calls it, Stancaster has “civitas Stancester stetit super ripam rivoir de Pante, currentis per Maldunum“.
Osea Island: The Old Farm. Centre of the Island.
High up on the shore, just below Stansgate, is moored Watch Vessel, 21, of which we give an illustration; it is inhabited by the Chief Coast Guard Officer, his four men, their wives and families. The present W.V. succeeded the “Richmond” about 1870; previously a revenue cutter was stationed at Bradwell. Here every vessel proceeding up the river is challenged or boarded, and the coastguard are very glad to welcome anyone landing here and to render assistance if necessary at low water, or help to look after a boat and so keep it afloat; the shore is then very flat, but at high water the landing is good, as the beach is steep, but near the point the seawall is faced with ragstone.
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