GALIUM SPURIUM
Family and Genus:- See- RUBIACEAE/Sect. KOLGYDA
Common Names:- False cleavers
Homotypic Synonyms:- Galium vaillantii
Meaning:- Galium (Gr) Milk.
Spurium (L) False, bastard.
General description:- Herbaceous plant, with trailing or climbing stems,
Stems:-
1) 10-100(-160) cm, scrambling, weak to rather stout, retrorsely aculeolate, usually
hairy at the nodes.
Leaves:-
1) (5-)30-35 x 2·5-4 mm, in whorls of 6-10, narrowly oblanceolate, gradually
narrowed into the long-awned apex, more or less hairy and setose above, the
somewhat revolute margin and midrib retrorsely aculeolate.
Flowers:-
1) Inflorescence, narrowly ovoid to cylindrical (rarely reduced);
a) partial inflorescences, 1- to 7-flowered, longer than the leaves.
2) Peduncles and pedicels, patent, straight but often sharply bent just under the
fruit.
3) Corolla, 0·8-1·3 mm in diam. greenish-yellow, glabrous;
a) lobes, acute.
Fruit:-
1) Mericarps, 2-3 mm, hispid with hooked setae without tubercle-like base, or
sometimes smooth and glabrous.
Key features:-
1) Peduncles or pedicels, divaricate after anthesis, straight (or bent only just
beneath the fruit).
2) Leaves, papillose-hairy above.
3) Corolla, 0·8-1·3 mm, diam, greenish-yellow.
4) Mericarps, 2-3 mm, hispid with hooked setae.
Habitat:- Gravelly places in gorges and streambeds, roadsides, waste-ground. 0-
700 m.
Distribution:- Throughout Greece. - A Mediterranean Euro-Siberian species. Rare
on Crete currently known from only on location in the Psiloritis mountains.
Flowering time:- Mostly Apr-June
Photos by:- Courtesy of Wiki-Commons
SPECIES DESCRIPTION
