REEPING lowlily among the 
grasses of the pasture, its slender 
square stems spreading from the 
root, there may be found from 
spring to autumn the little Field 
Madder (Sherardia arvensis), 
with its terminal umbel of minute 
pink flowers. At regular intervals along the stem 
there are four or six lance-shaped leaves with 
bristly edges, and arranged in a whorl. On some 
of the stems we shall find that the lowermost 
leaves are in pairs only, and it is believed that the 
founder of this family was an opposite-leaved plant. 
A very large number of species like Coffea and 
Cinchona—none of them represented in this country, 
however—always have their leaves in pairs ; and the 
contention is that what appears to be six leaves in a 
whorl on this stem of Field Madder is really only a 
single pair with a pair of leafy stipules from the base 
of each. The flowers are only about one-eighth of 
an inch across, and very like Jasmine blossoms in 
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