bedstraw

Kit Hill is covered now in a small, white flowered plant, heath bedstraw, a relative of woodruff and lady's bedstraw. There is a wealth of folklore attached to these plants (for example that the Virgin Mary lay on a bed of lady's bedstraw in Bethlehem because the donkeys had eaten the rest of the fodder) and they have many practical uses, not least of which was to put them in straw mattresses to make them smell sweet(er). Interestingly they also contain significant amounts of coumarin, an effective anticoagulant.