288 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



Field Madder (Sherardia avvensis). 



The name of a Leicestershire botanist, James 

 Sherard, born at Bushby, who introduced Dillenius 

 to England, is commemorated in the first Latin 

 name of this plant. 



Field Madder is common in all parts of the British 

 Isles, but it is not so frequent in North Scotland. 

 It is found in the Channel Islands. 



The second Latin name is an indication of the 

 habitat of the Field Madder (as is likewise the 

 English prefix), mainly fields, especially cultivated 

 fields, cornfields, and waste places ; but it also occurs 

 on banks and dry pastures. 



The habit is like that of Squinancy Wort, trailing 

 or creeping. The plant is hairy. The stems are 

 prostrate, branched, leafy, spreading from the root. 

 The leaves are about six in a whorl, the lower small, 

 inversely ovate, the upper linear to lance-shaped, 

 rough along the edge, and terminating in a fine 

 point. These last features may be of the nature of a 

 protection to the plant. 



The flowers are lilac, blue, or pink, small, in small 

 stalkless terminal heads, or umbels, with a broad 

 leafy involucre of seven to eight bracts. The calyx 

 segments are four, two being divided into two nearly 

 to the base, the teeth being lance-shaped, aciculate, 

 accrescent, enlarged after flowering, forming a leafy 

 crown to the fruit. The bracts exceed the flowers. 



