White to Green and Brown Flowers 191 



The Common Plantain is so familiar to travellers that it 

 calls for no special description. It has greenish flower- 

 spikes and reddish seeds. 



Plantago major i'ar. asiatica, or Asiatic Plantain, has 

 oval several-ribbed leaves, the base abruptly contracted into 

 a petiole, and longer less dense spikes of greenish flowers 

 than the preceding species. Kalm says that in the United 

 States Plantains were formerly called " Englishman's 

 Foot," because it was believed that wherever a Britisher 

 went these plants always followed in his steps. This is an 

 introduced plant. 



NORTHERN BEDSTRAW 



Galium boreale. Madder Family 



Stems: smooth, branched, leafy. Leaves: in fours, linear, acute. 

 Flowers: in terminal panicles, dense, many-flowered in small compact 

 cymes. Fruit: hispid. 



The Northern Bedstraw may be distinguished by the fact 

 that its tiny narrow leaves grow in circles of four round 

 the stems. It is a plant bearing many small white flowers 

 in clusters, and the seeds are twin burs, covered with numer- 

 ous hooked bristles, by means of which they cling to the 

 clothing of the passer-by and the fur of animals. 



Sir John Franklin in his book The Polar Seas describes 

 this plant as being used by the Indians as a vegetable dye. 

 They call it Sawoyan, and after boiling the roots they mix 

 the liquid with the juice of strawberries and cranberries, 

 and thus obtain a beautiful scarlet dye. 



Galium triflorum, or Sweet-scented Bedstraw, always 

 grows in threes, or on three-branched stems, as might be 

 inferred from the name triflorum. The leaves are a trifle 

 broader than those of G. boreale, but the flowers of both 



