[see STRAW.]
† 1. The straw which (covered by a sheet) formerly constituted the bedding in an ordinary bed, and which still serves in rural districts instead of a palliasse, or under-bed. Obs. (See also STRAW.)
c. 1386. Chaucer, Merch. T., 539. O perilous fyr that in the bedstraw bredeth.
1388. Wyclif, Ps. vi. 7. Y schal moiste my bedstre [1382 bedding] with my teeris.
1483. Cath. Angl., 25. Bedstrey, stratum, stratorium.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 402. Ferne put into the bedstrowe, driueth away the stinking punayses.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 696. The Chamber and Bedstraw, kept close, and not Aired.
a. 1637. Dekker, Witch Edm., IV. ii. Wks. 1873, IV. 413. More fire i’ th’ Bed-straw?
2. Name applied to a genus of plants (Galium, N.O. Rubiaceæ) containing many species, with slender ascending stems, whorled or cruciate leaves, and small clustered flowers. One of these (G. verum) has long borne the legendary name of Our Lady’s Bedstraw (cf. the similarly allusive Our Lady’s Garters, Mantle, Slippers, Smock, etc., etc.); whence recent writers have somewhat irrationally taken ‘Bedstraw’ as an English book-name for the whole genus, making ‘Our Lady’s B.’ a species.
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, O iv. Our lady bedstrawe, serpillum in latyn.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., V. v. 169 b. Decoction of the herbe called our ladyes bedstrawe.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, II. cccclxix. 1126. There be divers sorts of the herbes called Ladies Bedstraw or Cheese renning.
1784. J. Twamley, Dairying Exempl., 119. The Runnet Plant … English Names, are yellow ladies bedstraw or Cheese renning, or petty muguet.
1820. Sowerby, Eng. Bot., s.v., Rough Marsh Bed straw.
1854. S. Thomson, Wild Fl., I. 68. In the bedstraws … we count four stamens.
