Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, growing in the mini-meadow in our back garden.

Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, is in full flower at the moment. The plant is like a fuzzy, soft focus version of Lady’s Bedstraw, Galium verum, which I wrote about last July.

Both plants are perennial members of the Bedstraw family, the Rubiaceae. Both have whorls of leaves and flowers but Crosswort has softer, wider, paler green leaves in whorls of four rather than the six to eight thinner, darker green leaves of Lady’s Bedstraw. Crosswort is altogether a softer, floppier plant than Lady’s Bedstraw.  Lady’s Bedstraw has bright yellow flowers, while Crosswort’s flowers are a paler yellow. Lady’s Bedstraw smells of new-mown hay when in flower; Crosswort’s flowers have the delicious scent of honey.

Crosswort is a British native wild flower of well-drained neutral or calcareous soils. It can be found growing on road verges and in hedge banks, in ungrazed grassland, in open scrub and on woodland rides and edges. It becomes scarce from central Scotland northwards and is rare in Ireland, where it is considered to be an introduction. The plant occurs throughout much of Europe as well as in northern Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, and the western Himalayas. It has also been introduced to parts of New York state (Ontario county) in the United States.

Considering that the Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora shows records for Crosswort across much of England and Wales, it is a plant I rarely see growing wild here in Norfolk, perhaps because it prefers calcareous soils.

My first encounter with Crosswort was on a road verge just outside Edinburgh in 1983, where I knew it by its old name, Cruciata ciliata. (Another former name is Galium cruciata.) In Norfolk I have seen it growing on a couple of road verges, near Metton in North Norfolk and recently just north of New Buckenham (note 1).

I have several patches of Crosswort in the garden, all of which came from a single pot-grown plant bought from Natural Surroundings in North Norfolk in 2013. Planted in fertile sandy loam in a border, my Crosswort grew and grew, spreading through the border. I removed most of it but the smallest pieces grew back. Something similar has happened in the border at the far end of the garden. Crosswort is a tough, hardy plant and definitely likes its growing conditions here, happily tolerating the winter shade in our north-facing back garden and regular droughts. I am happy for it to spread, up to a point, not only for its glorious flowers but because its dense ground-hugging habit provides lots of cover for spiders and insects. But after flowering I pull out excess handfuls of it.

The Scottish Wildflowers website says that Crosswort’s flowers “are followed by black berries, about as large as currants, which remain attached to the plant till late in winter”. This is true for Crosswort’s relative Wild Madder, Rubia peregrina, but not for Crosswort, which has one or two inconspicuous nutlets.

Crosswort is also known as Smooth Bedstraw, Maywort and Maiden’s Hair. Its Scots Gaelic name is Luc Na Croise. Cruciata means crucified and laevipes refers to Crosswort’s smooth stalks.

Crosswort has been used medicinally and the Plants For A Future website lists several past uses. These include the treatment of wounds and obstructions of the stomach and bowels. The plant was also used to stimulate the appetite and to treat rheumatism, rupture and dropsy. The leaves are edible raw or cooked, though I haven’t tried them.

As ever, the Wildflower Finder website has a series of excellent photographs of the plant, which I recommend.

Notes

Note 1 – Thanks to Mike Ball for telling me of two more Norfolk sites for Crosswort: on the road leading out of Hanworth towards Sustead and on Emery’s Lane at Hanworth.