425 



Andover, by Mr. Wm. Whale, labelled Magdalen Hill, near Winton, 

 1838; but although the genuine plant, I cannot venture to include in 

 a Hampshire list a species so foreign as this to the south-east of 

 England, particularly as Mr. W. did not gather it himself at the sta- 

 tion, and cannot now remember the exact history of the specimen. 

 The hill itself, too, is as unlikely looking a place for G. boreale as 

 can well be imagined ; some mistake has unquestionably been com- 

 mitted. 



Rubia peregrina. Climbing over bushes, rocks and stony banks, 

 in woods, thickets and hedges in numberless places in the Isle of 

 Wight, and usually very abundantly. In various places about Ryde, 

 as in Quarr Copse and Church Lane Binstead, and most profusely at 

 the Priory, where (as well as about Steephill and thence onward to- 

 wards St. Lawrence) it forms a dense mat on the underwood all over 

 the grounds, and from off which it may be pulled by handfuls. Plen- 

 tiful about Yarmouth, Freshwater, Cowes, &c, &c. From the persis- 

 tent nature of its leaves it is here called evergreen cliver (cleaver is 

 the name for Galium Aparine in most parts of England), and the pe- 

 rennial stem often ascends trees to a considerable height* This is 

 usually described as square, but it is only the branches which are 

 quadrangular, the stem itself is quite terete, woody, and covered with 

 a fine ash-coloured epidermis, which, when old, peels off in paper-like 

 flakes, and though not in general thicker than a quill, I have reason 

 to believe lasts for several years ; even the flowering shoots are more 

 than annual, perhaps biennial or even perennial, but certainly less 

 enduring than the main stem, which is truly suffruticose in this species, 

 and unlike the square and very brittle branches, extremely tough and 

 flexile. The leaves are exceedingly inconstant in number and form, 

 varying from 4 to 6 in each whorl (commonly 4 or 5), mostly reduced 

 to 2 or 3 beneath and amongst the flowering ends of the branches, 

 and of all shapes, from lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate to broadly el- 

 liptical, ovato-elliptical, ovate, obovate or even suborbicular, the 

 smaller usually the broadest. Corolla truly rotate, without any tube, 

 granulated above, the innate anthers of an oblong rectangular figure, 

 piano convex and somewhat arcuate or decurved at each end. The 

 small, black, juicy, berry-like fruit is often abortive, wholly or partially, 



* I measured a stem from the Priory woods, near Ryde, which had ascended a 

 tree to the extent of ten feet, hanging detached or at some distance from the trunk 

 like a cord, and though the intermediate part appeared quite dead and withered, the 

 summit had shot out into a bundle of green and vigorous leafy branches, high over 

 head amongst the boughs of its supporter. 



Vol. hi. 3 k 



