Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Galium polyanthum

Common name

A bedstraw

Family

Rubiaceae

Where found

Forest, often among rocks. ACT and Kosciuszko National Park. South of the Hume Highway - ranges, tablelands, and Western Slopes.

Notes

Perennial herb, trailing to semi-erect. Stems mostly to 0.6 m long, with angles slightly to moderately broadened, sometimes as wide as the faces, densely hairy. Leaves and leaf-like stipules in whorls of 4. Stipules about the same length as the leaves below the flower clusters, decreasing in length up the stems, sometimes absent at the top. Leaves 0.3–2.5 cm long, 1–6 mm wide; upper surface with clear slender hairs, lower surface with clear slender hairs on the midrib and occasionally elsewhere, margins with clear slender hairs, and curved or rolled down; tips sometimes with a terminal hair. Flowers greenish cream or cream, sometimes red underneath, 1.8–3 mm in diameter, with 4 petals fused together near their bases, in clusters of 2-30-flowers. Flowering: mid–spring to summer. 'Seeds' about 1 mm long, dark brown, hairless, wrinkled.

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Galium~polyanthum  (accessed 22 January, 2021)