IUIBIACEtf. 225 



towards the base, with the 1 elevated lines closely covered with small 

 prickles with dilated bases. Leaves \ to 1±. inch long-, very narrow, 

 rough at the margins and midrib. Flowers very minute. Fruit 

 dark olive-colour, Somewhat shining, clothed with white hairs. 

 Plant bright-green. 



This plant is no doubt a sub-species of G. spurium, which has 

 not been found in Britain except as a casual straggler. Very 

 possibly both G. spurium and G. Vaillantii ought to be considered 

 as merely sub-species of G. Aparine, from which the smaller and 

 less tuberculated fruit, with longer and less booked hairs, are the 

 only material points of difference. 



Risp id-fruited Com Beddraw. 



French, Vaillantie Herissee. 



SPECIES XII.— GALIUM APARINE. Linn. 

 Plate DCLVIII. 

 Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XVII. Tab. MCXCVII. Fig. 1. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 3408. 



G. Aparine, var. a, Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv. ed. ii. p. 8G3. Benth. Handbook 

 Brit. Fl. p. 277. 



Annual. Stem branched principally towards the base, diffuse, 

 trailing or supporting itself on surrounding plants, glabrous except 

 usually immediately above the nodes ; rough on the angles with 

 deflexed prickles. Leaves 6 to 8 in a whorl, strapshaped-oblan- 

 ceolate or -obovate, rather abruptly acuminate, clothed with short 

 distant hairs, very rough on the margins with hooked prickles curved 

 backwards. Flowers white, about 3 in a sub-umbellate cyme, with 

 a whorl of bracts where the pedicels spring from the peduncle. 

 Peduncles divaricate and straight, rather longer than the leaves 

 from which they spring; pedicels straight (not recurved) after 

 flowering. Fruit pale-olive or dull-purplish, of 2 grains nearly 

 the size of hemp-seed, coarsely tuberculate, the tubercles crowned 

 by short white hairs with enlarged bases and sharply hooked 



tips. 



In hedges and cultivated ground. Very common, and generally 



distributed. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Stem 1 to 5 feet long (the latter only when supporting itself by 

 its hooked prickles amongst the plants in a hedge), somewhat thick- 

 ened at the joints. Leaves \ to 2 inches long. Flowers very small, 

 2 to 5, on rather short peduncles ; the pedicels divaricate. Fruit 



vol. iv. 2 G 



