G A L I U M Withering»*
R o u g h H e a th B ed -s traw .
TETRANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. C har. Cor. of one petal, flat, superior. Seeds 2,
roundish.
Spec. Char. Leaves about five in a whorl, widely
spreading, lanceolate, slightly awned, fringed with
bristles. Stem upright, slightly branched, rough.
Syn. Galium Witheringii. Sm. FI. Brit. 174. Hull,
ed. 2 . 4 4 .
G. montanum. With. 187. t. 28 ; not of Linnaeus.
D r. WITHERING found this Galium, on high but boggy
parts of Handsworth heath near Birmingham, and took it tor
theLinnaean montanum, which being a very different plant, it
was thought right to commemorate the discoverer of the new
one in its specific name. We have indeed the same in Mr.
Rose’s herbarium, mistaken for uliginosum, but have never
gathered any ourselves. The Bishop of Carlisle favoured us
with specimens gathered last July in Bank Meadow, close to
his Lordship’s fine seat of Rose Castle, Cumberland. It grows
in a moist but rather barren spot, not smothered with high
grass, near Linum catharticum, small Agrostis vulgaris, a,nd
some Potentilla anserina.
The stem, though upright, is weak, about a foot high, either
quite simple, or bearing a few lateral branches; its edges rough
with deflexed hooks. Leaves about 5 in a whorl, sometimes 6,
on the weak parts 4, widely spreading or deflexed, small,
elliptic-lanceolate, often tipped with a minute bristly point,
their edges fringed with short bristles or hooks pointing towards
the apex. Panicles small, terminal, 3-forked, their
stalks smooth except the main one. Buds purplish. Corolla
cream-coloured when expanded. Anthers at first of a pale
yellow green, but they directly turn red, reddish, or red brown.
Style short, cloven. Stigmas globular, green. Germen and
fruit smooth. '•
This completes our descriptions of the genus Galium., as far
as hitherto discovered in Britain; but Switzerland and France
afford sevetal kinds which might be expected to grow with us,
and which perhaps have been overlooked, they being often
very similar to each other; and there are few genera whose
synonymy is more difficult,