2783
GALIUM cinereum.
Grey Spreading Bedstraw.
TETRANDRIA Monogynia.
Gen. Char. Cor. of one petal, flat, superior. Seeds
2, roundish.
Spec. Char. Leaves six or eight in a whorl, linear,
bristle-pointed, with marginal prickles, all pointing
forward. Stem weak, much branched,
smooth. Fruit smooth. Corolla taper-pointed.
Syn. G. cinereum. Allion. Pedem. v. 1. 6. t. 77. ƒ. 4.
Willem. Stell. 54. Sm. Engl. Fl. v. 1. 203.
Lindl. Syn. 129. Hook. Brit. FI. ed. 2. 65.
G. diffusum. Hook. Scot. v. 1. 52.
-A.MONG the few plants admitted into the English Flora
by Sir J . E. Smith since the 36th volume of English Botany
was completed, are several of which we despair of
obtaining fresh specimens; among these are two species of
Galium, the subjects of this and the following pages, and
which we have been under the necessity of figuring, by permission,
from the dry plants in Sir James’s herbarium,
lately purchased by the Linnean Society. Our inability to
examine the fresh plants has also induced us to give the
following descriptions, in Sir James’s own words, from his
English Flora. The specimen was collected “ on the banks
of the river Leith, near Slateford, three miles from Edinburgh,”
by the late Mr. G. Don.
“ Stems loosely spreading, or 2 feet high, repeatedly
branched, leafy, smooth, pale, or somewhat glaucous, quadrangular,
one or two of the angles sometimes doubled.