178 LADIES -BEDSTRAW AND HARRIFF. 
in this respect, it seems impossible to doubt that this is a very trivial 
difference. It is singular that while Presl* places W. Virginica ir 
Doodya, and Fée in his equivalent section of Woodwardia, Mettenius* 
and Hooker locate it with the typical Woodwardie. It is indeed so 
exceedingly like W. Japonica (the supposed diagnostic character given 
by Mr. Baker,{ derived from the more or less prolonged costal sori, 
does not hold good), that I should not be at all surprised at their 
proving conspecific. 
LADIES-BEDSTRAW AND HARRIFF. 
The following correspondence has been published in the * Athe- 
næum’ :— 
“ Bedstraw.—1s there any authority for saying that the name of this 
plant was ever spelt Bede or Bead-straw ? In Dodonzus's * Herbal,’ 
translated by Henry Lyte, with additions, fol. 1578, it is said, * This 
Herbe is ealled—in Douch Walstroo ; and as Matthiolus and Turner 
write Unser Frauwen Wegstro (Our Ladies Way-strew) and of some 
Megerkraut ; we may also name it Pety Muguet, Cheese (rennet), or 
our Ladies Bedstraw.’ (Page 539) Minshew (Ductor in Linguas, 1617) 
has ‘ Ladies Bedstraw, because their beds were strawed with it But 
probably, like many other pretty things, it was dedicated to ' our 
Lady ;’ and those only who have seen the delicate white Bedstraw on 
our downs, covering the sward with a smooth white sheet, can appre- 
ciate the truthfulness and beauty of the name which designates it a fit 
strewing either for the path, as in Germany, or the bed of the queen 
of the fairies, or her successor ‘our Lady.’ It is a pity to try to 
knock the poetry out of old words by giving them prosaic derivations. 
It is not safe either to jump to conclusions from similarity of sound.” 
* Harriff is not * hair-rough ; but the Irish word for cleevers (see 
Withering, * Botany, ii. p. 227), probably imported by Irish harvest- 
men.” —EpEN WARWICK. 
“ There is a Lincolnshire legend about the yellow Ladies’-Bedstraw, 
which shows that people in former days believed that this plant owed 
its name to the Blessed Virgin. The story is, that when the infant 
* Tentamen Pteridograph. 99. + Fil. Hort. Bot. Lips. 65. 
t Synops. Fil. 188. 
