MADDER FAMILY 



ASPERULA. CROSSWORT 



Asperiila. 

 Asperula, roughish, referring to the leaves. 



Stem.— Square, low but erect. 



Leaves and leaf-like stipules form a regular whorl at the joint of the 

 stem, in eights, sixes, or fours. 

 Flowers.— Tuhula,r, four-parted, honey-bearing, grouped in cymes. 

 Calyx. — Four-toothed. 



Coro/te.— Bell-shaped or funnel-formed; border four-lobed. 

 Stamens. — Four; styles two, somewhat united. 



The Asperulas are a group of herbs of 

 low stature and delicate foliage, useful for 

 borders and rockeries in shaded places, but 

 no better than many of our native plants. 

 They bloom from May to July. 



The white-flowered, perennial species, 

 odor&ta, called Sweet Woodruff, has long 

 been used in Europe as a sweet herb. The 

 dried leaves arid flowers have the odor of 

 new-mown hay, a fragrance that lasts for 

 years, so that the plant is packed among 

 clean linen to impart its odor to the clothes. 

 The Germans call it Waldmeister and use 

 it in the concoction of their May wine and 

 summer drinks. 



Asperula orienMis is a blue-flowered 

 annual species from Caucasus, whence it 

 was brought into England in 1867. It is a 

 branching plant about twelve inches high, with lance-shaped, 

 bristly leaves, eight in a whorl. The whorled leaves are charac- 

 teristic of the Asperulas as well af of the Galiums. 



No representatives of the genus are native to the United 

 States, and but one is adventive here, galioldes, found in New 

 England. 



416 



Asperula. Asperula 

 orienlhlis 



