26o EUBIACEAE 



5. Loddon. Wellington College, Fenny, 1874 (I have not seen 

 specimens). Abundant in a field on Berkshire side just below 

 Albert Bridge, Old Windsor, Bolton King. Bray meadows. 

 In a field which had been recently laid down for grass near 

 Cookham, but not typical. 

 G. eredum appears to be more of a colonist than a native in Berkshire, 

 and is recorded for all the bordering counties except E. Gloucester- 

 shire. 



G. Mollugo, Linn. Sp. PI. 107 (1753). Hedge Bedsiraw. 



Mollugo vulgatior, Park. 565. Rubia sylvestris, Ger. Ein. 11 18. 

 Top. Bot. 212. Syme, E. B. iv. 218, t. 650. Nyman, 324. Fl. Oxf. 148. 

 Native. Septal, &c. Hedges, railway-embankments, thickets, &c. 

 Very common and generally distributed. A great adornment to 

 our hedgerows when in flower. P. May-September. 

 First record. Sonning, Mr. S. Budge in Herb. Brit. Mus. 1800, Published 

 as G. mollugo, Wild Madder goose grass, Dr. Noehden, Mavor's Agr. 

 Berks, 1809. 



Our most frequent form of this variable species is the large free- 

 growing i^lant, with oblanceolate leaves arranged about eight in 

 a whorl, with a laige open panicle of many flowers becoming 

 divaricate in fruit, to which the name G. elatum, Thuill., Fl. Par. ed. 2, 

 76, is given. This is the common plant of hedgerows and copses, &c., 

 throughout the county. Specimens were sent to the Bot. Exch. Club by 

 the author in 1892. On the open chalk downs, where G. Mollugo is 

 sometimes found in coarse grassy spots, the plant naturally becomes 

 more condensed, the leaves narrower and of thicker texture, and with 

 the margins more or less recurved, the whorls being reduced to six 

 leaves, while the panicle is less open, with fewer flowers, and hardly 

 divaricate in fruit. This form has been named by British botanists 

 var, iNsuBKicuM, ? G. insubricum. Gaud. Fl. Helv. i. 421. See Reichb., 

 Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. xvii. t. 11 89, fig. i, Koch describes it as having 

 papyraceous leaves, while Grenier and Godron in Fl. Fr. ii. 22, describing 

 it under the name var. umbrosum, say that it ' has a depauperate panicle 

 and larger leaves than the type,' — a description by no means fitting 

 to the above plant, which I am inclined to think is only a form educed 

 by the drier soil and more exposed situation in which it occurs, as at 

 Uffington and Upton in the Ock district ; at Basildon, Sulham, and 

 near East Ilsley, in the Pang district ; near Lambourn and Catmore 

 in the Kennet district j and near Park Place and Bisham in the 

 Loddon district. 



In shady places, as at Basildon, I have found a plant with a smaller 

 and less divaricate panicle, but with larger and broader leaves of 

 a thinner texture, agreeing with specimens of G. tyrolense, Willd. 



