Galium L.
Annual or perennial herbs with slender, usually 4-angled stems. Lvs and leaflike stipules similar, in whorls of 4-12, mainly sessile or subsessile. Fls small, usually ⚥, rarely unisexual, in terminal or axillary panicles or cymes, rarely solitary; ultimate infl. branches with or without bracts; bracteoles 0. Calyx a minute ridge. Corolla (3)-4-(5)-lobed, usually rotate with very short or almost no tube, rarely funnelform. Stamens 4, usually very short. Ovary 2-celled; ovules 1 per cell; styles 2, connate towards base; stigmas capitate. Fr. dry, of 2, 1-seeded mericarps, glabrous or variously hairy, sometimes bristly.
Key
c. 300 spp., temperate and montane tropical regions. Native spp. 3, naturalised 9.
The spp. of this large genus are sometimes difficult to identify and the taxonomy of some European spp. is rather confused. Representatives of most of the spp. described below were determined by F. Ehrendorfer, Vienna.
In Galium spp. the infl. may be anything from a solitary fl. to a few-flowered cyme or a large diffuse cymose panicle with several orders of branches. In some annual spp. most of the plant functions as a single infl. In all spp. found in N.Z. the fls are pedicellate with the exception of the ♀ fls of G. perpusillum, a sp. rather aberrant in Galium (see under G. perpusillum). Peduncles when present consist of the penultimate infl. branches and like the lower orders of branches of the more compound infls they are often subtended by leaflike bracts. In this account pedicel and peduncle lengths include flowering and fruiting stages.