Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Galium asprellum Michx.
- Family: Madder (Rubiaceae)
- Flowering: May-September
- Field Marks: This bedstraw is distinguished by its leaves in whorls of 4, 5, and 6, rough-hairy, elliptic or oval leaves and stems, and the smooth fruits that are black at maturity and two lobed.
- Habitat: Wet woods, low ground, damp thickets.
- Habit: Perennial herb from slender roots.
- Stems: Spreading or ascending, much branched, reclining on vegetation, rough-hairy with hooked prickles, up to 6 feet long.
- Leaves: In whorls of 4, 5, or 6, simple, elliptic to oval, blunt to slightly pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, up to 1 inch long, up to 1/4 inch wide, rough-hairy on the edges and the midvein below.
- Flowers: Several in small branched clusters up to 1 inch long, white.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 4, united at the base, white, about 1/16 inch long.
- Stamens: 4.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior, smooth.
- Fruits: Spherical, black at maturity and bilobed, up to 1/10 inch in diameter, smooth.
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