GOOSE-GRASS. 103 



remaining eight alone had nine leaves in the ring. The 

 flowers are few in number and small in size, a cluster of 

 from two or three to eight or nine being borne on a 

 peduncle springing from the leaf-ring. Each little 

 corolla is conspicuously cross-like in form, a feature seen 

 equally well in the bedstraws, plants belonging to the 

 same genus, and one of which, the cross-wort, we have 

 elsewhere figured. On the dying away of the flowers, they 

 are succeeded by fruits that resemble two dry and globular 

 berries in contact ; the form may be readily seen in our 

 illustration. The bristly character of the fruit, and its 

 consequent attachment to the clothing of animals and 

 man, is an evident provision for its wide dispersion and 

 propagation. 



The goose-grass forms one of the ingredients for 

 the cooling spring drinks in such favour with our great 

 grandmothers ; the expressed juice was taken internally in 

 cutaneous eruptions; and the herb, when crushed and 

 bruised, was applied externally as a soothing poultice. 

 Even yet the services of the plant to humanity are not 

 exhausted, for we are told that the roots will yield a 

 good red dye ; that the berries, when dried and slightly 

 roasted over the fire, form an excellent substitute for coffee, 

 and yield a very colourable and palatable imitation of it, 

 while the whole plant gives a decoction equal to tea. The 

 juice taken in wine was supposed to be a remedy for the 

 poison of the adder ; and it was also added to broth and 

 pottage " to keep them lean and lank that are apt to 

 grow fat." It was drunk twice a day, too, by the victims 

 of yellow jaundice, and in divers other ways pressed into 

 rural medical practice. 



Besides the present plant and the cross-wort, of both 



