Galium palustre

Erect or scandent annual; stems slender, to 150 cm long, glabrous or with a few scattered minute and slightly retrorse prickles. Leaves and stipules subsessile, stipules becoming conspicuously shorter than leaves upwards, predominantly in whorls of 4, often with a few whorls of 5 or 6, narrow-spathulate or oblanceolate to narrow-oblanceolate, 7–20 mm long, 1–4 mm wide, obtuse to rounded with terminal hair occasionally present, upper surface glabrous except for minute antrorse short hairs near margin, lower surface glabrous or with a few to numerous spreading to slightly retrorse hairs along midrib; margins flat, recurved or revolute. Inflorescences 5–15-flowered, mostly exceeding whorls when mature; peduncles 1–10 mm long; pedicels 0.5–5 mm long. Corolla 2–4.5 mm diam., white or tinged pink. Fruit depressed-globose, 0.8–1.3 mm long; mericarps globose, touching one another, smooth to rugose, finely papillose, blackish-brown or purple-brown, glabrous. Flowers summer–early autumn.