ON GALIUM COMMUTATUM. 18] 
This species belongs to the division of the section Eugalium of 
Koch, characterized by decumbent stems in combination with 
whitish flowers and awnless corolla-lobes, of which the pre- 
viously-known British representatives are saxatile, and the plant 
which our authors, followimg Smith, are agreed to call pusil/um, 
but which is better known upon the Continent by the name 
of sylvestre ; it is to the last of these that it is most closely 
allied, an _and with which it is most liable to be confounded. From 
that species it may be known by its more numerous and smaller 
flowers, more spreading panicle, patent branches, thicker and 
narrower leaves (usually numbering about seven in a whorl), 
which are inconspicuously nerved on the under side, shining and 
glabrous stems, and various other distinctions of lesser import- 
ance. Like pusillum, it pretty much preserves its clear green 
colour in drying, whilst sawxatile, as is well known, almost in- 
variably changes to black; in its loose, straggling, procumbent 
habit of growth, it differs conspicuously from both the other 
species, so that I have no hesitation in regarding it as essentially 
distinct. 
On the Continent it has been found by its nomenclator in 
the neighbourhood of Lyons, by Billot at Haguenau, by Grenier 
at Besangon, and by Lecog and Lamotte amongst the moun- 
tains of Auvergne. It was originally described and named by 
Jordan, the first authority on European Galia, in the third fas- 
ciculus of his ‘Observations sur plusieurs Plantes nouvelles, 
rares, ou critiques de la France,’ published in. 1846; by Boreau 
in the second edition of the ‘Flore du Centre de la France’ 
(1849). The plant of Auvergne is given under the name of 
G. supinum, Lam.; but Grenier and Godron consider (vide 
‘Flore de France,’ vol. 1. p. 32) that it is impossible to decide 
with confidence that it is identical with what is intended by 
Lamarck, and they therefore adopt in preference the designation 
which I have employed. 
This is the same plant to which allusion is made at page 180 
of the Supplement to ‘The Yorkshire Flora.’ It was M. Jordan 
himself who first suggested to me the identity of the Teesdale 
plant with this species, an idea which the study of his published 
description amply confirms. . 
Thirsk, October, 1855. 

