392 
44 . rubiace-r. 
on the rocky west hank of the Rib. de Joao Gomes 400-800 ft. 
above Funchal. 
Whole pi. smooth and shining. Root and rootstock woody. 
St. slender brittle strongly 4-angular stiff, not at all nodulous 
or swollen at or above the joints or whorls of 1., quite smooth 
and even ; the flowering branches produced and trailing ex- 
tensively amongst rocks and stones or climbing to the height 
of 4 or 5 ft. amongst bushes, with short leafy side -branches, 
pale brown and shrubby downwards and clothed like the barren 
branches with the strong-lv deflexed imbricately crowded whorls 
of the old persistent 1. L. light gr. not at all glaucous, very 
shining hard stiff and stiffly spreading or strongly deflexed not 
reticulate, the margins revolute with a few irregular obscure 
forward-pointing spinules but sometimes quite even and entire, 
not often less than 7-8-nate even on the smaller branches, 2-4 
lines long, |-1 line broad, tipped with a line short awn-like point. 
FI. rather large for a Galium , 4-5 millim. in diam., w. with a 
very slight yellowish or cream-col. tinge, produced abundantly 
in short lateral leafy crowded 3-chotomously decompound cymes 
from the leaf- whorls towards the ends of the branches, forming 
an elongated terminal many-fld. oblong tliyrse or panicle with 
finely capillary strongly divaricated (not erect or ascending) 
short crowded branches and pedic. or fruit-stalks. Pet. thickish 
ovate abruptly producto-npiculate faintly 3-nerved or furrowed 
submarginate much longer than the ov. Styles distinct nearly 
to the base; stigmas capitate globose. Fr. small 1^-2 mill, in 
diam. quite smooth and even, one of the two oblong-oval or 
slightly kidney-shaped mericarps of which it is composed 
usually smaller or abortive. 
G. cinereum All., DC. is a very distinct sp. with glaucous 
1. and st., and erect subelongated pedic. — G. cinereum Sm. 
(KBS. 2783) is probably a mere var. of G. erection Huds. 
(EB. t. 20(57), which seems even still more distinct than G. 
datum Thuill. (G. moUugu KB. t. 1073) from the Mad. pi. 
It is remarkable that this almost universally diffused and 
abundant Mad. pi. has never occurred in the Canaries. 
§ 3. Aparine Koch. L. 1 -nerved ; root ann. ; st. armed more 
or less with de Hexed prickles; H. cymoso-paniculate or 
axillary and 1-3-nate. 
