THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



71 



{Gaiiuni aparine) is selected as the type, but there are a few 

 whose beauty or usefuhiess lifts them out of this category. 

 The northern bedstraw {Galium horeale) is beautiful and 

 decorative enough to be admitted to the flower garden, and 

 indeed is occasionally cultivated, though it manages very well 

 for itself along roadsides and on moist banks where its tiny, 

 though numerous, white flowers form conspicuous patches. 

 A nearly related species {Galiiim niollugo) , evidently named 

 for its resemblance to the Indian chickweed (Mollugo' verti- 

 cillata), is frequently cultivated. The flowers though exceed- 

 ingly small are borne in such myriads that its common name 

 of Scotch mist seems fairly descriptive. Beginning about 

 midsummer it blooms for a month or more and is highly 

 valued for adding tO' boucjuets of sweet peas and other flowers 

 whose beauty of form is one of their distinguishing character- 

 istics. It is often called baby's breath, but this name is 

 regarded as belonging by rights to one of the pinkworts — 

 Gypsophila paiiiculata. Our plant is a native of Europe but 

 has escaped from cultivation in various places in the North 

 Atlantic States. The common name of cleavers, applied to 

 members of the Galiuin genus, is ecjuivalent to the term 

 ''stickers'' applied to other plants who.se seeds or stems cling 

 to the clothing of animals or even of man himself. 



Food of the Robin. — Just across the street from where 

 this is written, a robin is rearing a family in a lofty elm and 

 feeding it with insects from our garden. Everybody knows 

 in a general wa}^ that robins eat earthworms and the larvae 

 O'f various insects, but it is not until some such opportunity 

 as this brings the matter to one's attention that he realizes 

 how great the number and variety of insects captured, or tliat 

 the bird has preferences in the matter of diet. As soon as 

 the writer goes into the garden, the mother bird appears and 

 demands food by numerous insistent chirps. She seems to 

 regard digging in the garden as one of Nature's schemes 



