RUBIACE^ 159 



LiNN^A Gronov. 

 Linncea horealis L. 



Root creeping, throwing up barren shoots and flowering stems 

 3 or 4 inches high, naked, glandular, and bearing on slender pedicels 

 2 or rarely 3 pendent, white, campanulate, sweet-scented flowers 

 with pink veins. Leaves opposite, shortly stalked, ovate orbicular, 

 slightly crenate, evergreen, rather coriaceous. Capsule berry-like, 

 glandular-hairy, inferior. 



Creeping in moss and over rocks in damp, shady places in Alpine 

 woods up to 6600 feet ; local. June to August. 



Distribution. — Carpathians, Riesengebirge, Harz Mountains, N. 

 German Plain, Haute-Savoie, near the Swiss frontier (rare). Eastern 

 Switzerland (Engadine, etc.) and locally, in the southern valleys of 

 Valais from Bagnes to Saas ; Norway, Scotland, Northern Asia, 

 and N. America. 



RUBIACE^ 



Slender herbs (in Europe) with angular stems and entire leaves, 

 in whorls of 4, 6, or 8, the buds and branches always opposite. 

 Flowers small, in terminal or rarely axillary heads or panicles. 

 Calyx more or less combined with the ovary. Corolla mono- 

 petalous, with 4 or 5 spreading lobes. Stamens as many, inserted 

 in the tube. Ovary inferior. Style 2-cleft at the top, with a 

 capitate stigma to each branch. Fruit of 2 i-seeded, indehiscent 

 lobes. 



One of the largest families, with perhaps 4500 species, but 

 particularly numerous in the tropics, where it includes trees and 

 shrubs as well as herbs. 



Galium L. Bedstraw. 



Herbs with weak, quadrangular stems, sessile leaves in whorls 

 of 4, 6, or 8, and small white, yellow, or reddish flowers in axillary 

 or terminal cymes or panicles. Calyx combined with the ovary 

 without any visible border. Corolla rotate, the tube scarcely per- 

 ceptible, with 4 spreading lobes. Fruit small, dry, 2-lobed. 



A large genus of about 200 species, spread over the whole of the 

 temperate regions, and especially abundant in Europe and Northern 

 Asia, and penetrating into the tropics. 



Galium vernum Scop. 



A slender, green species, 6-10 inches high, with stoloniferous, 

 creeping branches and ascending stems, with short internodes. 

 Leaves in fours, oval-elliptic, obtuse or rarely mucronate, with 3 

 principal nerves. Flowers yellow, on glabrous pedicels, disposed 

 in axillary cymes. Fruit glabrous and shining, becoming blackish. 

 It somewhat resembles the common G, Cruciata, which is also seen 



