in botany: A genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the tetrandra clas of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 47th order, Stellata. The corolla is monopetalous and plain; and there are two roundish seeds. There are a great many species; of which the most remarkable are, the verum, or yellow lady's bed-straw; and the aperine, clivers, or goose-grass. The former has a firm, erect, brown, square, stem; the leaves generally eight in each whorl, linear, pointed, brittle, and often reflex; branches short, generally two from each joint, terminating in spikes of small yellow flowers. It grows commonly in dry ground, and on road sides. The flowers will coagulate boiling milk; and the beef Cheshire cheese is said to be prepared with them. The French preferre them in hysterical and epileptic cases. Boiled in alum-water, they tinge wool yellow. The roots dye a red not inferior to madder; for which purpose they are used in the island of Jura. In the Edinburgh medical commentaries we have accounts of some violent scrofulous complaints being cured by the juice of this plant.—Sheep and goats eat the plant; horses and swine refuse it; cows are not fond of it. The aperine, or clivers, has a square, very rough, jointed, very weak stem, two, three, or four feet long, and adhesive; the branches are opposite; the joints hairy at the base; the leaves, consisting of eight or ten at each joint, are narrow, pointed, above rough, beneath smooth, and carinate; the seeds are rough; flowers white, small, few on slender foot-stalks on the tops of the branches. It is frequent in fields by the sides of hedges, &c. The expressed juice of this plant taken internally, and the bruised leaves applied by way of poultice, are said to have been used with success as a cure for the cancer. The effects being slow, though sure, the course, it is said, often requires to be continued for nine or ten months.