Calyx-tube short; the limb parted into 4 teeth. Corolla funnel-form or salver-form, valvate in the bud. Stamens 4. Stigma or style 2-cleft. Fruit small and dry, 2-celled, 2-seeded, splitting when ripe into 2 carpels, one of them usually carrying with it the partition, and therefore closed, the other open on the inner face.--Small herbs, the bases of the leaves or petioles connected by a bristle-bearing stipular membrane. Flowers small, whitish, crowded into sessile axillary whorled clusters or heads. (Name compounded of σπέρμα, _seed_, and ακωκή, _a point_, probably from the pointed calyx-teeth on the fruit.) 1. S. glàbra, Michx. Glabrous perennial; stems spreading (9--20´ long); leaves oblong-lanceolate; heads many-flowered; corolla little exceeding the calyx, bearded in the throat, bearing the anthers at its base; filaments and style hardly any.--River-banks, S. Ohio to Ark., Tex., and Fla. Aug. 6. DIÒDIA, Gronov. BUTTON-WEED. Calyx-teeth 2--5, often unequal. Fruit 2- (rarely 3-) celled; the crustaceous carpels into which it splits all closed and indehiscent. Flowers 1--3 in each axil. Otherwise resembling Spermacoce. Flowering all summer. (Name from δίοδος, _a thoroughfare_; the species often growing by the wayside.) 1. D. Virginiàna, L. Smooth or hairy perennial; stems spreading (1--2° long); leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, sessile; corolla white (½´ long), the _slender tube abruptly expanded into the large limb; style 2-parted; fruit oblong, strongly furrowed_, crowned mostly with 2 slender calyx-teeth.--Low grounds along streams, southern N. J. to Fla., west to Ark. and Tex. 2. D. tères, Walt. Hairy or minutely pubescent annual; stem spreading (3--9´ long), nearly terete; leaves linear-lanceolate, closely sessile, rigid; _corolla funnel-form_ (2--3´´ long, whitish), with short lobes, not exceeding the long bristles of the stipules; _style undivided; fruit_ obovate-turbinate, _not furrowed_, crowned with 4 short calyx-teeth.--Sandy soil, N. J. to W. Ill., Fla., and Tex. 7. GÀLIUM, L. BEDSTRAW. CLEAVERS. Calyx-teeth obsolete. Corolla 4-parted, rarely 3-parted, wheel-shaped, valvate in the bud. Stamens 4, rarely 3, short. Styles 2. Fruit dry or fleshy, globular, twin, separating when ripe into the 2 seed-like, indehiscent, 1-seeded carpels.--Slender herbs, with small cymose flowers (produced in summer), square stems, and whorled leaves, the roots often containing a red coloring matter. (Name from γάλα, _milk_, which some species are used to curdle.) § 1. _Naturalized species; fruit dry._ G. VÈRUM, L. (YELLOW BEDSTRAW.) Perennial; stems smooth, erect; leaves 8 or sometimes 6 in the whorls, linear, roughish, soon deflexed; flowers very numerous, paniculate, yellow; fruit usually smooth.--Dry fields, E. Mass. (Nat. from Eu.)