/$ [ 1871 ]
GALIUM spurium.
Smooth-seeded, Corn Bed straw.
TETRANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. Char. Cor. of one petal, flat, superior. Seeds 2 ,
roundish.
Spe c . Ch a r . Leaves about eight in a whorl, their
margin, as well as the stem, rough with reflexed
prickles. Flower-stalks axillary, many-flowered,
cymose. Fruit smooth, erect. .
Syn. Galium spurium. Linn. Sp. PI. \54>.
G. n. 7 2 4 . Hall. Hist. v. 1. 3 1 8 . Nomencl. 66.
Aparine vulgaris, semine minori. Vaill. Paris. 14.
t. 4 .ƒ . 4 ?
M r . GEORGE DON discovered this plant in cornfields
about Forfar, North Britain, but sparingly, as mentioned at
t. 1641. W e have been favoured by^Mr. Turner with a
garden specimen, which precisely accords with Mr. Don’s
wild ones, whence our seeds were taken, as well as with those
in the Linnaean herbarium. Yet the G.'spurium of Wiildenow,
Roth, and most of the authors they cite', is no other than our
tricorne, t. 1641. Haller indeed well knew the present plant,
and he is perhaps right in quoting Vaillant as above; but if
so the fruit is liable to be occasionally hairy, a variation which
we have indeed observed in other species of the genus.
G. spurium is annual, flowering in June and July. Its
habit much resembles G. Aparine, t. 816, but the leaves are
sometimes shorter. They are from 6 to 8 or 9 in a whorl,
their edges and keel rough with recurved prickles. The stein
is rough with similar prickles, and quadrangular. Flower-
stalks axillary, opposite, rough, corymbose, each bearing 6
or 7 green flowers, all more or less fertile, accompanied with
1 or 2 floral leaves. Germen quite smooth. Ripe fruit of 2
brown kidney-shaped lobes or seeds, with a central cavity
between them ; their surface smooth and even, except a slight
ruggedness which seems to be caused by drying only. The-
fruitstalks are upright or spreading, not curved downward.—
Valantia Aparine of Linnaeus, Galium verrucosum of Prod.
FI. Grcec. 93, ha's the prickles of its leaves directed forwards,
the fruit coarsely tubereulated, and recurved.