Scientific name: Galium boreale L.
Common name: Northern Bedstraw
Description
Habit: Perennial, to 45 cm high.
Stems: Erect, 4-angled, short-hairy.
Leaves: Opposite, with several leafy and large stipules per leaf making it appear that leaves are in whorls of 4-8; undivided, untoothed, unstalked, lanceolate to narrowly oval, 1.5-3 cm long, with short and rough hairs on the veins on underside and on the margins, with rounded leaf-tip; 3-veined.
Flowers: White, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, numerous, in compound axillary and terminal cymes; sepals absent or minute; petals 4, fused into tube below, with 4 lobes, corolla 3 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; covered with hooked bristles.
Habitat: Shores of limestone lakes and around turloughs, limestone pavement, rocky grassland, mountain cliffs.Distribution: Frequent to rare.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No