Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Galium binifolium
Common name
A bedstraw
Family
Rubiaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, and near streams. Coast and ranges. Occasionally elsewhere.
subsp. binifolium: Coast and ranges. Occasionally elsewhere.
subsp. conforme: Two records from Ben Boyd National Park south of Eden. Two records in the hills NE of Albury. Mostly in Vic.
Notes
Annual or perennial herb, usually prostrate to scrambling, occasionally weakly rhizomatous. Stems to 0.5 m long, 4-angled, usually with sparse backwrd-pointing tiny prickles, or smooth, occasionally sparsely hairy. Leaves opposite each other, larger than the leaf like stipules forming the rest of the whorl of 4 (at least on the lower branches) 0.3–1.5 cm long, 1–4 mm wide, tips pointed, surfaces with a few hairs mainly on the margins and midrib. Flowers cream to yellowish or greenish, often with a reddish or purple tinge, 1.3–2 mm in diameter, with 4 petals fused together near their bases, in clusters of 1-8 flowers. Flowering: spring. 'Seeds' about 1.5 mm long, wrinkled or ribbed, more or less hairless.
subsp. binifolium: Leaf like stipules less that half the length of the leaves in the whorls below the flower clusters.
subsp. conforme: Leaf like stipules more that half the length of the leaves in the whorls below the flower clusters.
PlantNET description of species and key to subspecies: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Galium~binifolium (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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