Galium palustre L.
marsh bedstraw
Perennial, usually drying dark brown or black; stems slender, weak and straggling, to c. 60 cm long, glabrous, or scabridulous on the acute angles. Lvs and stipules in whorls of 4-(6), subsessile or with short petiole to c. 1 mm long, 3-15 × 0.7-4.5 mm, linear, narrow-elliptic or oblanceolate, generally glabrous; margins flat, sometimes scabridulous; apex usually obtuse, sometimes subacute. Lvs of uppermost nodes often smaller. Cymes small, loose, glabrous or nearly so, often 2-5 from same axis, each with c. 3-7 fls, usually aggregated into panicles of up to 20 fls; peduncles very variable in length, to c. 2 cm long; pedicels up to 3 mm long, divaricating at fruiting; bracts leaflike at base of infl., either very reduced or 0 toward apex. Corolla 2-3-(3.5) mm diam., white; lobes ovate or ovate-oblong, acute or mucronulate. Mericarps 0.8-1.2 mm diam., globular, ± papillate.
N.: commonest in northern and central areas; S.: commonest in the north and west.
Europe, Asia Minor 1904
Wet places, especially swamps, bogs, lakesides, and river banks, sometimes damp shady forest margins and clearings.
FL Nov-Apr.
In Europe, this sp. belongs to a polymorphic complex which has been divided into several spp. and subspp., the most widespread besides G. palustre sens. strict. being G. elongatum C. Presl. However, the diagnostic characters of stem thickness, lf length, corolla diam. and mericarp size show that the N.Z. plants belong to G. palustre subsp. palustre. Another feature of the N.Z. plants is the prominently 3-nerved corolla lobes, a character they share with the closely related G. debile.
