Cleavers, 1 1 5 



peculiarities of the goose-grass, and ask what is the 

 use of the wee recurved prickles which you can see 

 thickly scattered on the stalk and whorls by the aid 

 of my pocket lens. You observe that they occur all 

 along each angle of the stem, and around the edge 

 and midribs of the leaflets as well. If you try to pull 

 a bit of goose-grass out of the thicket entire, you will 

 soon see the function they subserve. The plant, you 

 notice, resists your effort at once ; the little prickles 

 catch securely on to the bushes and defeat all en- 

 deavours to tear it away. It is these prickles, indeed, 

 which are the raison (Tctrc of the goose-grass as a 

 separate species : they mark it off at once from 

 almost all the other members of the same group. 

 There are many allied kinds of galium in England 

 (for galium is the botanical name of the genus), with 

 very similar leaves and flowers, but they all grow in 

 shorter bunches and frequent less thickly populated 

 situations. Goose-grass, however, has survived and 

 become a distinct kind just in virtue of these very 

 hooks. By their aid it is enabled to scramble for 

 many feet over hedges and bushes, though it is but 

 an annual plant ; and it thus makes use of the firm 

 stem of yonder hawthorn and this privet bush by our 

 sides to raise its leaves into open sunny situations 

 which it could ne^'^r reach with its own slender stalk 



