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ROCK ROSE
Helianthemum nummularium
Family Cistaceae
Common throughout the country, except in Cornwall and West Scotland, where it is rare. On our southern chalk-downs and on banks in gravelly soils the Rock-rose is abundant. The plant is shrubby and its branches trail on the ground among grass and low herbage.
It is perennial and has a creeping rootstock. The annual flowering branches extend up to nearly a foot long. The leaves are small, oblong, with an even margin ; the upper surface hairy, the lower, downy. They are arranged on the stem in pairs and provided with long slender stipules.
It has only three sepals, but there are two others reduced to the size and shape of stipules. The five somewhat flabby petals have the softness of the poppy.
The open pale-yellow flowers vary from three-quarters to one and a quarter inches across. A multitude of stamens surround the pistil ; they are irritable and on being touched fall back from the pistil.
Flowering from June to September.
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