CIASS IV. ORDER I.] SHERARDIA— ASPERWLA. 189 



veutitious colour when madder as a food lias been discontinued for a 

 sufficient length of lime. Formerly madder was considered a useful 

 deobstruent and diuretic medicine, but it is now seldom or never used 

 for such purposes. 



GENUS VI. SHERAR'DIA. Linn. Sherardia, or Field bladder, 



Nat. Ord. Stella T^E. 



Gen. Char. Corolla funnel-shaped, with four segments. FriiU down- 

 ed with the persistent teeth of the calyx. — " Named in honour of 

 James Sherard, an Englisli botanist and patron of botany, whose 

 fine garden at Eltliam in Kent gave rise to the famous ' Hortus 

 Elthamensis' of Dillenius." 



1. S. arven'sis, Linn. (Fig. 239.) blue Sherardia, Little Field Mad- 

 der. Leaves about six in a whorl ; flow ers in terminal heads. 



English Botany, t. 89L — English Flora, vol. i. p. 196. — Lindley, 

 Synopsis, p. 130. — Hooker, British Flora, vol. i. p. 69. 



Root small, somewhat creeping. Stems procumbent at the base, 

 erect in the upper part, from four to eight inches long, simple or 

 branched, smooth, or more or less rough with spreading hairs, square, 

 and bearing numerous whorls of about six leaves, the lower ones ovate, 

 acute, gradually becoming lanceolate in the upper part of the plant, 

 the margins rolled back and the midrib prominent on the under side ; 

 the uppermost whorl of leaves seven or eight united at the base, where 

 they are pale and membranous, forming an involucrum to a small head 

 of about eight sessile, small, hhie Jluwers. Calyx superior, of four 

 roughish lobes, the two opposite ones bifid, its tube adhering to the 

 germen. Corolla funnel-shaped, its tube cylindrical, and the limb of 

 four equal, spreading, acute segments. Fruit of two united pericarpia, 

 separating at maturity, each containing a solitary erect seed, and 

 crowned by three teeth of the calyx, one being the single tooth ; the 

 two lateral ones, each half of the opposite cleft ones. 



Habitat. — Corn and fallow fields, especially in a light soil; frequent. 



Annual ; flowering during the summer months. 



This species has much the habit and appearance of a Galium, from 

 which, however, it is readily distinguished by the form of its inflores- 

 cence and fruit. 



GENUS Vn. ASPER'ULA. Linn. Woodrvff. 



Nat. Ord. Stella'ive. 

 Gkn. Char. Corolla funnel-shaped, with from three to four segments. 

 Fruit not crowned with the cali/x. — Name from asper, rouyh; on 

 account of the roughness of some of the species of the geilus. 



