G A L I U M uliginosum.
RouOgh Marsh Red-straw.
TETRANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. C har. Cor. of one petal, flat, superior. Seeds 2,
roundish.
Spec. Char. Leaves six in a whorl, lanceolate, pointed,
rigid, their edges rough with reflexed prickles.
Fruit smooth, smaller than the corolla.
Syn. Galium uliginosum. Linn. Sp. PL 153. Sm. FI.
Brit. 175. Huds. 68. With. 188. Hull. 36. ed.
2. 44. Relh. 56. Sibth. 58. Abbot. 33.
Aparine palustris minor parisiensis, flore albo. Dill,
in Raii Syn. 225.
O f this little Galium there is scarcely a certain figure extant,
for those cited in Wllldenow’ s Sp. PL are equally distinct
from it and from each other. J. Bauhin’s Rulia qucedam
minor, v, 3. 716, is too imperfect to be at all relied, on.
Our plant is not uncommon in Norfolk, growing in wet
ditches and boggy places among reeds, water-mints, &c., and
flowering in July and August. The roots are small, creeping,
perennial. Stems a foot or more in height, branched, rough,
so very weak and brittle, that as the leaves stick to every thing
around them and to each other, good specimens are with difficulty
extricated. The leaves are 6 in a whorl, variously
spreading, light green, lanceolate inclining to obovate, tipped
with a small bristle, their edges and keel rough with minute
prickles pointing backwards, while a simple row of similar
prickles often occurs on the upper side near the margin, and
these always point forwards. Flowers small, white, on terminal,
cloven stalks, which are smooth and usually 3 together.
Fruit small, dotted, but scarcely rough, and never,
as far as wc have observed, hairy.