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Plants of this family are very rare in the tropics; they have in some sort a northern character, and therefore we never expected to see one on the plain of Caripe at so inconsiderable an elevation. The northern character also appears in the Galium caripense, the Valeriana scandens, and a sanicle not unlike the S. marilandica.
There was a strange-looking plant with large heart-shaped leaves and curved yellow blossoms ending in a long upper lip that puzzled me much, and it was afterwards that I found its name to be aristolochia clematitis. It grows abundantly on the banks of the Tarn. Another plant that I now noticed for the first time was a galium with crimson flowers.
The rough parts of the plant are discovered to be particles of flint. ERIOPHORUM polystachion. COTTON GRASS. The down of the seeds has been used, instead of feathers, for beds and cushions; and the foliage in the north of Scotland is considered useful as fodder. GALIUM verum. YELLOW LADIES' BEDSTRAW. The foliage affords the dairy-maid a fine rennet for making cheese.
"Thayer's the Highbelier; it's a high hairb, an' it's moighty foine fur the bowels when ye drink the dry root. Shure an' it shakes ivery toime the wind blows. "That's Clayvers," she said, picking up a Galium. "Now fwhat wud ye think that wuz fur to cure?" "I don't know. What is it?"
Bedstraw galium and field scabious, ox-eyes and knapweed, bladder-campions and ragged robins, mallows and crane's-bill all the flowers of the English banks seemed to be there. Where the bare rock showed itself, yellow sedum spread its gold, and in the little clefts stood stalks of cotyledon, now turning brown.
The few hook- climbers which I have observed, namely, Galium aparine, Rubus australis, and some climbing Roses, exhibit no spontaneous revolving movement. If they had possessed this power, and had been capable of twining, they would have been placed in the class of Twiners; for some twiners are furnished with spines or hooks, which aid them in their ascent.
Galium Mollugo has been divided into G. elatum with a long and weak stem, and G. erectum with shorter and erect stems; Cochlearia danica, anglica and officinalis are so nearly allied as to be hardly distinguishable.
The Sweet William or Dianthus barbatus affords another instance; it is very interesting because a twisted race is available, which may produce thousands of instances developed in all imaginable degrees, in a single lot of plants. Viscaria oculata is another instance belonging to the same family. I have found them myself in Holland on Galium verum and G. Aparine.
I immediately went down to the edge of a bushy and swampy meadow below our camp and brought him a four-petaled flower of galium, and a plant-stalk with four leaves in a whorl. In another locality I might have brought him dwarf cornel, or the houstonia, or wood-sorrel, or the evening-primrose.
BRANCHING LARKSPUR. The petals bruised yield a fine blue pigment, and with alum make a permanent blue ink. FRAXINUS excelsior. MANNA. The bark immersed in water gives a blue colour. GALIUM boreale. CROSS-LEAVED BEDSTRAW. The roots yield a beautiful red, if treated as madder. GALIUM verum. YELLOW BEDSTRAW. The flowers treated with alum produce a fine yellow on woollen. The roots, a good red.
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