398 RUBIACEAE (MADDER FAMILY} 



Stems many-branched, ridged, and square, two to five feet long, 

 very slender and too weak to support themselves, so that they 

 clamber over other plants, clinging by means of backward-turning 

 prickles on the stem angles. Leaves in whorls of sixes or eights, 

 one to two inches long, narrowly spatulate, bristle-pointed, the 

 margins and midribs rough with short, stiff hairs. Flowers very 

 small, usually in groups of two to four in the 

 upper axils. Corollas four-lobed, white, with 

 four stamens inserted on the tube and two 

 styles. Fruits small, twinned globular burs 

 about an eighth of an inch broad, covered with 

 short, hooked bristles. (Fig. 277.) 



Means of control 



Since the plant is an annual, if Galium thick- 

 ets are cleaned out in the spring before the first 

 burs form, the ground must soon be rid of their 

 presence. 



ROUGH BEDSTRAW 



Galium asprellum, Michx. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: June to August. 



Seed-time: July to September. 



Range: Newfoundland to Ontario, Minnesota, 

 FIG. 277. and Nebraska, southward to Missouri and the 



Goose-grass or Carolinas. 



Cleavers (Galium Habitat: Alluvial ground; fence rows, thickets 

 Aparine). along streams. 



A vexation to the wool -grower in the autumn, when the vines 

 have matured and become brittle; broken bits of the square, 

 hooked stems work into and cling to the fleeces of the sheep, often 

 transporting whole clusters of the seeds to new ground, from which 

 the plants are difficult to dislodge because of their perennial roots. 



Stems two to six feet long, branching from the base, weak and 

 reclining on bushes and other plants, clinging by means of down- 

 ward-curving bristles on the stem angles. Leaves usually about an 

 inch long, whorled in fives or sixes or occasionally in fours, oblong- 



