Galium mollugo
L. Hedge BedstrawAscending or procumbent perennial; stems slender, 15–150 cm long, glabrous or with with short pale hairs. Leaves and stipules, sessile, c. equal, in whorls of 5–18, elliptical-obovate, oblong-oblanceolate, oblanceolate or linear-oblanceolate, 8–30 mm long, 1–7 mm wide, rounded to subacute, usually mucronate, upper surface glabrous, lower surface glabrous or shortly hairy with antrorse hairs near flat or slightly recurved margin. Inflorescences 6–9-flowered, greatly exceeding whorls; peduncles 1–5 mm long; pedicels 1.5–3(–4) mm long. Corolla 2–5 mm diam., white. Fruit depressed-globose, 0.5–0.8 mm long; mericarps ellipsoid to reniform, touching one another, brown or blackish, smooth, glabrous. Recorded flowering in May in Victoria.
Native to Europe. Collected once in Victoria in 1951 from Neerim South in Gippsland.
Very similar to Galium album and possibly conspecific. However, the two taxa may be cytologically distinct with Galium mollugo being diploid (2n=22) and G. album being tetraploid (2n=44) at least in continental Europe (Sell & Murrell 2006).
