284 RUBIACE.E. GALIUM. 



1 GALIUM Tourn. (BEDSTRAW. CLEAVERS). 



Herbaceous or rarely suffrutescent plants with square stems, 

 opposite or verticillate leaves and perfect or rarely polygamous 

 small flowers in axillary or terminal simple or paniculate cy- 

 mules or solitary. Calyx-tube ovate globose or oblong; the limb 

 obsolete. Corolla rotate, 4-parted, rarely 3-parted: stamens as 

 many as lobes of the corolla, short. Styles 2, more or less united 

 at base: stigma globose. Fruit 2-lobed, dry or baccate, separa- 

 ble at maturity into 2 indehiscent, 1 -seeded carpels, 



Fruit dry. 



* Annuals ; fruit more or less hispidulous or hirsute, without hooked 

 bristles: flowers hermaphrodite, white or whitish. 



G. Aparine L. Sp. i, 108. Stems coarse, reclining, 1-8 feet long; in- 

 trorsely hispid on the angles; leaves 6-8 in the whorls, oblanceolate to al- 

 most linear, 1-2 inches long, cuspidate acuminate, retrorsely hispid on the 

 margin and midrib: peduncles rather long, 1-3 in the upper axils or ter- 

 minal, bearing 1-3 pedicellate flowers : corolla 1-2 lines in diameter, white- 

 ish : fruit not pendulous rather large, granulate-tuberculate, the tuber- 

 cles tipped with unoinate bristles. In rich lands along streams, etc., Cal- 

 ifornia to Alaska and across the continent. * (Europe). 



G. spuriuni L. Sp. i, 106? G. Aparine var. minor Hook. Stems slen- 

 der, branching from the base, diffuse, 1-2 feet long, retrorsely hispid on 

 the angles: leaves 6-8 in the whorl, linear-oblanceolate, cuspidate, 6-15 

 lines long, retrorsely scabrous on the veins and margin, the axillary um- 

 bellate cymes 3-9-flowered : corolla about 1 line in diameter, white or 

 greenish: fruit large, more or less fine-tuberculate and uncinate-hispid. 

 On stony hillsides, California to British Columbia and the Rocky Mount- 

 ains, east of the Cascade Mountains. 



G bifoliura Watson Bot King 134, t. 14. Smooth and glabrous: 

 stems slender, 2-12 inches high, mostly erect, sparingly branched: leaves 

 2-4 in the whorl, lanceolate, 4-8 lines long, when 4 the alternate pair much 

 smaller: peduncles solitary, lateral and terminal, naked, 1 -floweret I, when 

 in fruit about equalling the leaves, spreading: corolla minute, white ; 

 fruit small, minutely hispid, recurved at the end of the peduncle. In 

 open places on the high mountains, Washington to California, Nevada and 

 Utah. 



* * Wholly herbaceous perennials: flowers not dioecious: bristles 

 on the fruit short and uncinate or none. 



-*- Leaves in fours throughout or fewer. 



Cr. Oregannm Britton Bull. Torr. Club xxi, 31. G. Kanitschaticum of 



authors as to the Pacific Coast plant. Stems slender, numerous and radi- 

 ately spreading from the crown of a rather thick root, 6-18 inches long : 

 leaves oblong to ovate, acute or acutish or the lowest obtuse 6-48 lines 

 long, 4-6 lines broad, distinctly 3 nerved, ciliate on the margins and usu- 

 ally also on the upper side of the nerves : cymes mostly terminal, rather 

 few-flowered; flowers dull cream color, on short diverging pedicels; fruit 

 hispid. In the Cascade and Coast mountains, Oregon to Alaska. 



G. boreale L -p i, 108. Stems erect, 1-2 feet high, mostly glabrous: 

 very leafy : leaves from linear to broadly-lanceolate, 1-2 inch en long, ob- 

 tuse, distinctly 3-nerved, often with fascicles of smaller ones in the axils : 

 the uppermost reduced to pairs of oblong or oval bracts : flowers in numer- 

 ous close cymules collected in a terminal and ample thyrsi form panicle, 



