Scientific name: Galium verum L.
Common name: Ladies Bedstraw
Description
Habit: Perennial, to 1 m high.
Stems: Trailing to erect, 4-angled; slender and hairless or slightly downy.
Leaves: Opposite, with several leafy and large stipules per leaf making it appear that leaves are in whorls of 8 or more; undivided, untoothed, unstalked, linear, with a short narrow-pointed tip, with the hairs half way along the margin pointing forwards towards the tip; 1-veined.
Flowers: Yellow, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, in axillary or terminal panicles; sepals absent or minute; petals 4, fused into tube below, with 4 lobes, corolla 2-4 mm across, tube shorter than lobes; stamens 4-5, attached at the top of corolla tube; ovary inferior, 2-celled.
Fruits: 2 fused and later separated 1-seeded nutlets; smooth.
Habitat: Banks, roadsides, rocky ground, pastures and stabilised dunes.Distribution: Abundant on limestone and calcareous sands; on acid rocks frequent near the sea.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No