Alas! the Shoreham beach, which until less than twenty years ago was in a natural state, has been so overbuilt with ship-works and bungalows that it has become little else than a suburb of Brighton; yet even now the remaining strip of shingle, stretching for half a mile between sea and harbour, is the home of some delightful plants. In the more favoured 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 plants will be found growing in close company along the grassy ridges. The most attractive of these are the graceful little spring vetch (_vicia lathyroides_), the rue-leaved saxifrage, and that tiny turquoise gem which is apt to escape notice, the dwarf forget-me-not--a trio of the daintiest blossoms, red, white, and blue, that eyes could desire to behold. Shoreham has long been famous for its clovers; and some are still in great force there, especially the rigid trefoil (_trifolium scabrum_), and its congener, _trifolium striatum_, with which it is often confused, while the better-known hare's-foot also covers a good deal of the ground. But there is a sad tale to tell of the plant which once the chief pride of these shingles, the starry-headed trefoil, a very lovely pink flower fringed with silky hairs, which, though not a native, has been naturalized near the bank of the harbour since 1804, but 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 _leguminosae_, 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 last year, with every likelihood of these also disappearing as the place is further "developed." The second of the Shoreham rarities, the pale yellow vetch (_vicia lutea_) has fared better, owing to its wider range, and is still scattered freely over the yet unenclosed shingles. It is a charming flower; but its doom in Sussex seems to be inevitable, for the bungalows, with their back-yards, tennis-courts, "tradesmen's entrances," and other amenities of villadom, will doubtless continue to encroach upon what was once a wild and unsullied tract.