Scientific name: Galium saxatile L.
Common name: Heath Bedstraw
Description
Habit: Perennial.
Stems: Trailing to semi-erect, 4-angled, smooth, freely branched, to 20 cm long.
Leaves: Opposite, with several leafy and large stipules per leaf making it appear that leaves are in whorls of 5-8; undivided, untoothed, unstalked, oblong-lanceolate, with a short narrow-pointed tip, margin hairs half way along the margin pointing forwards towards the tip; 1-veined, less than 10 mm long.
Flowers: White, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, in compound axillary or terminal cymes; sepals absent or minute; petals 4, fused into tube below, with 4 lobes with a short (less than 0.2 mm) point, corolla 2-3 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; slightly rough, less than 1 mm across.
Habitat: Heaths, banks, bog-margins, grassland.Distribution: Abundant on acid soils, not recorded on the limestone.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No