FLOWERING PLANTS OF THE GREEN LANES. 237 



the latter is low. The Yellow Bedstraw (Galium 

 veruni) has another name (" cheese rennet "), so 

 given on account of its possessing the power of 

 curdling milk. Its spikes of small golden yellow 

 flowers renders it easily identifiable, and the smell of 

 new-mown hay which they give forth is anything 

 but disagreeable. The White Bedstraw (Gcdium 

 mollugo) has its spikes also crowded with blossoms. 

 Another species of this genus, called Goose-grass, 

 or Cleavers (Gr. aparine), is a capital climber, and 

 well deserves its name, for if you cast a fragment of 

 the plant on a person it will " cleave " or adhere to 

 the dress as if it were covered with gum. Its 

 flowers are small, and grow at the base of the 

 rosette-like whorls of leaves,which run up the square 

 stem. Here and there, at the foot of the hedge- 

 banks, are clusters of another species, the Cross- 

 wort (Odlium crueiatum), an erect plant about a 

 foot high, with whorls of palish-green, downy 

 leaves, and thick clusters of small yellow flowers at 

 their bases. It gives out a faint and rather sickly 

 perfume of new hay. Sometimes, partly climbing 

 at the base of the hedges, is a very pretty plant, 

 with small pinkish, snap-dragon shaped flowers, 

 called Fumitory (Fumaria offieinalis), which can- 

 not fail to be recognised in the early summer, 

 when the attention is not too much distracted by 

 the superabundance of species. Some people derive 

 its name from fume de lerre (earth-smoke), from 

 the supposed thin, vapour-like appearance of its 



