RUBIACEAE. 



369 



funnelform, 4-5-lobed, the tube as long as the lobes or longer. Stamens 4 or 5, 

 inserted on the tube of the corolla; filaments slender; anthers linear-oblong, 

 exserted. Ovary 2-celled; style 2-cleft at the summit; ovules 1 in each cavity. 

 Fruit didymous, the carpels indehiscent. Seed erect. [Named for Dr. Wm. 

 Sherard, 1659-1728, patron of Dillenius.] A monotypie genus. 



1. Sherardia arvensis L. Blue 

 Field-Madder. Herb Sherard. 

 Spur-wort. (Fig. 403.) Tufted, 

 roughish; stems numerous, pros- 

 trate, ascending, or decumbent, 2V— 

 10' long. Leaves in 4's, 5 's or 6 's, 

 the upper linear or lanceolate, acute 

 and sharp-pointed, rough-ciliate 

 on the margins, 3"-8" long, 1"- 

 2" wide, the lower often obovate, 

 mucronate; flowers in slender- 

 peduncled involucrate heads, the 

 involucre deeply 6-8-lobed, the 

 lobes lanceolate, sharp-pointed ; 

 corolla-lobes spreading ; fruit 

 crowned with the 4-6 lanceolate 

 calyx-teeth. [Galium arvensis of 

 H. B. Small.] 



Roadsides, lawns and waste 

 grounds. Occasional. Naturalized. 

 Native of Europe. Introduced into 

 the eastern United States. Flowers 

 in spring and summer. 



Rachicallis mpestris (Sw.) DC, West Indian, a low shrub of rocky coasts, 

 3° high or less, with densely leafy and thickened twigs, the linear-oblong, 

 fleshy leaves only 3"-5" long, sharp-pointed, grooved on the back, the solitary 

 and sessile yellow flowers about 3" long, the salverform corolla 4-lobed, the 

 fruit capsular, is recorded as Bermudian by Jones, Eeade, A'errill, Hemsley 

 and by H. B. Small. Eeade 's description of the plant he saw points to 

 Bandia aculeata, which he did not record, except in that he says the flowers are 

 yellow, whereas they are white. H. B. Small essentially copiecl Eeade 's descrip- 

 tion, and both assign the plant to the South Shores. Hemsley cites Munro as 

 a collector of the species, but no specimen of it from Bermuda is preserved 

 either at Kew or at the British Museum of Natural History. Eecent collectors 

 have been unable to find it. 



Morinda Roioc L., of Florida and the West Indies, was entered as Ber- 

 mudian in the manuscript list of plants compiled by Lane in 1845, and cited by 

 Hemsley. Lefroy mentions it as a native plant, found in the Walsingham 

 tract, but it does not appear that he ever collected it ; no Bermuda specimen 

 could be found in the Kew Herbarium in 1910. Verrill records it under the 

 common name ''Saw Weed." Eepeated search of the region between Castle 

 Harbor and Harrington Sound has failed to show its existence there at present; 

 it may have disappeared, or the records may be erroneous. It is a shrub, some- 

 times vine-like, with glabrous, opposite oblong leaves 2'-4' long, the small 

 white to red flowers in dense peduncled heads, the fruit a fleshy syncarp. 



Ixora coccinea L., Eed Ixora, East Indian, a glabrous shrub 3°-6° high, 

 with oblong to oblanceolate, sessile, often cordate leaves 2'-4' long, the red or 

 scarlet flowers commonly numerous in terminal clusters, the slender corolla- 

 tube about 2' long, narrowly cylindric, the widely spreading limb about 5' 



25 



