128 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



aurea, the golden woodruff. The madder has whorled 

 leaves, and is sometimes in the olden herbals called the 

 Rubia cruciata, or cross-wort madder, but the true cross- 

 wort is the plant we here figure. To this plant the name 

 may most appropriately be ascribed, for its leaves always 

 follow the cruciform arrangement, while the madder varies 

 from four to six leaves in each whorl or ring. Numerous 

 species of the genus Galinm are indigenous to Britain, one of 

 the commonest, and at the same time most attractive, being 

 the yellow bedstraw, G. verum, a plant so slender and 

 graceful in growth that it was by the olden botanists 

 called the ladies' bedstraw. This species and the cross-wort 

 are the only two bedstraws with yellow flowers ; all the 

 other species have white blossoms. A strong family like- 

 ness runs through them all, owing to the uniformity of 

 colour in their flowers, and to the fact that in all the species 

 the leaves are arranged in rings at intervals on the stems. 



