Cruciata laevipes

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crosswort
smooth bedstraw
(MHNT) Cruciata laevipes - Inflorescence.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Rubiaceae
Genus: Cruciata
Species:
C. laevipes
Binomial name
Cruciata laevipes
Synonyms [1]
  • Valantia cruciataL.
  • Galium cruciata(L.) Scop.
  • Galium cruciata var. laevipes(Opiz) W.D.J.Koch
  • Rubia cruciata(L.) Baill.
  • Valantia hirsutaGilib.
  • Aparine latifoliaMoench
  • Galium valantiaG.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb.
  • Valantia ciliataOpiz ex J.Presl & C.Presl
  • Galium glabrifoliumRochel
  • Galium cruciata var. mucronataPeterm.
  • Cruciata ciliataOpiz
  • Cruciata hirsutaFourr.
  • Galium luteocruciatumSt.-Lag.
  • Valantia crucialisBubani

Cruciata laevipes is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is commonly known as crosswort, smooth bedstraw or Luc na croise in Gaelic. [1] The Latin epithet laevipes refers to the smooth stalk.

Contents

The common name crosswort is a 16th century translation of the botanists' Latin cruciata planta, meaning "cross plant", i.e., with leaves in a cross-like arrangement. [2]

Description

This perennial sprawling plant can grow to a height of 15–70 cm (6–28 in), spreads by seeds and stolons and has, unusually amongst this group, yellow hermaphrodite flowers. The inner flowers are male and soon fall off, whilst the outer are bisexual and produce the fruit. The flowers smell of honey. Of the whorls of four leaves, only two in each group are real leaves, the other two being stipules. [3] It is associated with arbuscular mycorrhiza that penetrate the cortical cells of the roots. In the United Kingdom it flowers April to June. [4] Pollination is by bees and flies. [5]

Distribution and habitat

Cruciata laevipes is found in most of Europe as well as from northern Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, and the western Himalayas. [6] It is also reportedly naturalized in Ontario County in New York State. [7] Cruciata laevipes is found in meadows, road verges, riverbanks, scrub and open woodland, generally on well-drained calcareous soils. [8]

Uses

C. laevipes flowers Cruciata laevipes closeup.jpg
C. laevipes flowers

Cruciata laevipes is little used in herbal medicine today, but it was once recommended as a remedy for rupture, rheumatism and dropsy. [9] Bald's Leechbook recommended crosswort as a cure for headaches. [10]

Related Research Articles

<i>Galium</i> Genus of plants

Galium is a large genus of annual and perennial herbaceous plants in the family Rubiaceae, occurring in the temperate zones of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Some species are informally known as bedstraw.

<i>Sherardia</i> Genus and species of flowering plant

Sherardia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. The genus contains only one species, Sherardia arvensis, the (blue) field madder, which is widespread across most of Europe and northern Africa as well as southwest and central Asia and Macaronesia. It is also reportedly naturalized in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Kerguelen, Ethiopia, Sudan, southern Africa, Mexico, Costa Rica, South America, Bermuda, Cuba, Haiti and much of Canada and the United States.

<i>Galium mollugo</i> Species of plant

Galium mollugo, common name hedge bedstraw or false baby's breath, is a herbaceous perennial plant of the family Rubiaceae. It shares the name hedge bedstraw with the related European species, Galium album.

<i>Carduus crispus</i> Species of flowering plant in the daisy family

Carduus crispus, the curly plumeless thistle or welted thistle, is a biennial herb in the daisy family Asteraceae. It is native to Eurasia and has been naturalized in North America and India.

<i>Galium boreale</i> Species of flowering plant

Galium boreale or northern bedstraw is a species of perennial flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is widespread over the temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America including most of Canada and the northern United States.

<i>Galium saxatile</i> Species of flowering plant

Galium saxatile or heath bedstraw is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is related to cleavers.

<i>Galium sterneri</i> Species of plant

Galium sterneri or limestone bedstraw is a plant species of the Rubiaceae. It is native to northern Europe.

<i>Galium ambiguum</i> Species of plant

Yolla Bolly bedstraw is a species of plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to British Columbia, northern California and southeastern Oregon, where it often grows on serpentine soils.

<i>Cruciata</i> Genus of plants

Cruciata is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It is found in Europe, northern Africa, and across southern and central Asia from Turkey to the western Himalaya and north to the Altay region of Siberia.

<i>Galium asprellum</i> Species of plant

Galium asprellum, the rough bedstraw, is a plant species in the family Rubiaceae. It native to eastern Canada and northeastern United States, from North Carolina and Tennessee north to Minnesota, Ontario and Newfoundland. It is considered a noxious weed in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, and is abundantly common in the other New England states and in sections of the Great Lakes region. It is a perennial herb. Leaves are simple with three or more leaves per node. Flowers have four petals and are white in color.

<i>Galium concinnum</i> Species of plant

Galium concinnum, known as the shining bedstraw, is a herbaceous perennial plant species in the Rubiaceae family. It is native to the Midwestern United States and central Canada, especially the Great Lakes Region and the Valleys of the Ohio, lower Missouri, and upper Mississippi Rivers. It is commonly found in deciduous forests and forest edges. It grows low to the ground in natural habitats. Although it is not an invasive species, it can be very weedy. It is typically not cultivated.

Galium munzii is a species of plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is native to California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.

Galium leptogonium is a plant species in the family Rubiaceae. Common name is rock bedstraw. It is found only in Australia but widespread there, found in every state except Tasmania.

Galium muricatum, Humboldt bedstraw, is a species of plant in the Rubiaceae. It is native to northwestern California and southeastern Oregon.

<i>Galium tinctorium</i> Species of plant

Galium tinctorium, the stiff marsh bedstraw, is a species of plants in the Rubiaceae. It is widespread and common across the eastern part of North America, from Texas to Labrador and from Minnesota to Florida, plus eastern and central Mexico and the Dominican Republic. It is classed as a noxious weed in some parts of the northeastern United States.

Galium montis-arerae, the Pizzo Arera bedstraw, is a rare plant species in the Rubiaceae. It is named after the mountain called Pizzo Arera, in the Bergamo Alps of Lombardia region in northern Italy. It is found only in the range from Monte Pegherolo to Concarena in Bergamasque Prealps.

<i>Cruciata pedemontana</i> Species of plant

Cruciata pedemontana, the Piedmont bedstraw, is a species of plant in the Rubiaceae. It is native to the southern and central Europe, the Black Sea Basin, and southwestern and Central Asia from Turkey to Iran to Kazakhstan. It is also naturalized in parts of the United States.

<i>Alchemilla arvensis</i> Species of flowering plant

Alchemilla arvensis, known as parsley-piert, is a sprawling, downy plant common all over the British Isles where It grows on arable fields and bare wastelands, particularly in dry sites. The short-stalked leaves have three segments each lobed at the tip. Flowers April–September. The tiny green flower has four sepals and no petals, the fruit is oval pointed. Stipules form a leaf-like cup, enclosing the flower. The name of parsley piert has nothing to do with parsley. It is a corruption of the French perce-pierre, meaning 'stone-piercer' and was given to the plant because of its habit of growing in shallow, stony soil and emerging between stones. As in the case of saxifrage it was wrongly assumed that the plant could pierce stones; and it was thought that a medicine made of parsley piert would break up stones in the bladder and kidneys. Old folk-names for the plant include 'colicwort' and 'bowel-hive-grass', showing that it was also used for intestinal ailments.

<i>Apocynum venetum</i> Species of plant

Apocynum venetum, commonly known as sword-leaf dogbane, is a plant species in the dogbane family that is poisonous but used as a source of fiber, medicine, and nectar for production of honey.

<i>Cruciata glabra</i> Species of plant in the genus Cruciata

Cruciata glabra, smooth crosswort, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to Morocco, Algeria, southern, central and eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, the Altai, and western Siberia. It is often found in beech forests.

References

  1. 1 2 "ITIS - Report: Cruciata laevipes". www.itis.gov. Retrieved 2021-10-08.
  2. Grigson G. 1974. A Dictionary of English Plant Names. Allen Lane. ISBN   0-71-390442-9
  3. Hutchinson, John (1955). British Wild Flowers. Harmondsworth : Penguin. V. 1. p. 211.
  4. "Crosswort | The Wildlife Trusts". www.wildlifetrusts.org. Retrieved 2021-10-08.
  5. "Cruciata laevipes Crosswort, Smooth bedstraw PFAF Plant Database". pfaf.org. Retrieved 2021-10-08.
  6. "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew". wcsp.science.kew.org. Retrieved 2021-10-08.
  7. Biota of North America Program, Cruciata laevipes
  8. The Flora of Derbyshire [ permanent dead link ]
  9. "Medicinal plants". Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
  10. Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger August: The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium Little, Brown, 2000 ISBN   0-316-51157-9