Sherardia.] rubiace.e. 341 



to a foot or a foot and a half high, pale green, brittle, shining and glabrous, quad- 

 rangular, with a deep groove along each face, usually simple, but in the larger 

 and more luxuriant specimens often slightly branched, swollen and sometimes 

 purplish above the inferior whorls of leaves. Leaves in remote whorls, sessile, 

 bright grass-green, firm and lucid, quite glabrous excepting at their point of junc- 

 tion with the stem, where are a line of short bristles pointing downwards, forming 

 a ring or fillet below each whorl, rough along the margins and single prominent 

 midrib with close-set spinules, which are very acute and pointing forward ; leaves 

 of the lowermost whorl or two very small, usually 6, obovate, widely spreading ; of 

 the succeeding verticils 8 or 9, much larger, oblanceolate, patent or suberect, 

 mucronato-apiculate. Flowers snow-white, with a sweet honied fragrance, in 

 small few-flowered, di-trichotomously forked panicles, that stand mostly 3 toge- 

 ther at the summit of elongated grooved peduncles, which spring in an umbellate 

 manner from the centre of the uppermost whorl of leaves, but are sometimes late- 

 ral and solitary. Branches of the panicles short, divaricate, the primary and often 

 the secondary divisions furnished with one, two or more lanceolate brads (reduced 

 whorl) beneath the forkings ; pedicels very short and unequal. Corolla funnel- 

 shaped, somewhat fleshy, cleft for about J of its length into 4 ovate or subellipti- 

 cal, somewhat pointed, spreading segments, the apices of which are thickened at 

 the back and slightly incurved. Stamens erect, a little longer than the obsoletely 

 quadrangular tube, thair filaments adnate with the corolla the greater part of their 

 length ; anthers while, elliptical or sublinear. Style much shorter than the sta- 

 mens, cleft at summit or rather appearing as 2 styles united at top, surrounded at 

 base by an elevated, dimidiate, tumid ring or gland on the summit of the ovary, 

 which is nectariferous, and would be called a nectary by the older authors ; stig- 

 mas very large, white, pellucid, globose. 



2. A. Cynaiichica, L. Small Woodruff. Squinancy - wort. 

 " Leaves linear 4 in a whorl very irregular in the uppermost 

 ■whorls, fruit granular scabrous." — Br. Fl. p. 191. E. B. t. 33. 



On dry, open, hilly pastures, heaths and banks ; abundant on the downs, &c., 

 throughout the chalk districts. Fl. June — August. 2^. 



E. Med. — Very fine on banks at Ventnor. [On Ashey, Bradiug and Bem- 

 bridge downs, abundant. Dr. Bell-Satter, Edrs.] 



W. Med.— Everywhere about Carisbrooke. On Freshwater, Afton and other 

 downs, plentiful but mostly very diminutive. Between Calbourne and Brixton. 

 On the turf and banks along the shore from Norton westward. 



IV. Sheeaedia, Linn. Sherardia. 



" Corolla funnel-shaped. Stamens 4. Fruit crowned with the 

 calyx." — Br. Fl. 



1. S. arvensis, L. Little Field-madder. " Leaves about 6 in 

 a whorl, flowers terminal sessQe capitate." — Br. Fl. p. 190. E. 

 B. t. 891. 



In cornfields and other cultivated ground, fallows, waste places, and in woods, 

 mostly on a light gravelly or sandy soil; very common. Fl. April — Octo- 

 ber. 0. 



2 I 



