Galium leiocarpum
I.Thomps.Prostrate to decumbent perennial, often extensively rhizomatous; stems slender, mostly 8–40 cm long, with a few tiny retrorse prickles or spreading to retrorse hairs, sometimes glabrous. Leaves and stipules subsessile, subequal, in whorls of 4, elliptic, narrow-obovate to oblanceolate or weakly spathulate, 2–15 mm long, 1–5 mm wide, acute or slightly acuminate, without terminal hair, upper surface usually with scattered flattened clear triangular prickles, lower surface glabrous or with few flattened clear triangular prickles along midrib; margins flat or narrowly recurved, with flattened triangular or antrorse clear prickles. Inflorescences mostly 1–3-flowered, occasionally 4–6-flowered, mostly not exceeding whorls when mature; peduncles mostly 2–7 mm long; pedicels 2–7 mm long. Corolla 1–1.5 mm diam., greenish or greenish-cream. Fruit depressed-globose to globose, c. 0.8–1.1 mm long; mericarps reniform, touching one another, smooth, not or hardly rugose, dark brown, with scattered short, antrorsely curved hairs or rarely glabrous (not in Victoria). Flowers spring–summer.
VVP, VRiv, GipP, OtP, WaP, Gold, CVU, GGr, NIS, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, HNF, OtR, Strz, MonT, HFE, VAlp. Qld, NSW, ACT, Tas. Relatively common in damp to wet forest throughout the eastern half of the state with westerly occurrences in the Otway Ranges and near Cavendish.
Previously mistaken for the New Zealand endemic Galium propinquum. Galium propinquum differs from Galium leiocarpum by its slightly obovoid and glabrous ovary that is rugose when dry, by more spathulate leaves and by inflorescences that are of a similar length to the whorls or exceed them rather than some inflorescences being clearly shorter than the whorls as in G. leiocarpum (Thompson 2009).
Spinning