Galium tinctorium L., southern three–lobed bedstraw, dye bedstraw, stiff marsh bedstraw. Perennial herb, 1—several–stemmed at base, spreading to ascending and sprawling over low plants, to 25 cm tall; shoots weak–stemmed, only leaves somewhat scabrous, essentially glabrous.
Stems 4–sided and 4–ridged, to 0.8 mm diameter, never woody, ridges colorless, internodes 7—50 mm long, the lowermost internodes often rose–red to purplish red, sometimes inconspicuously papillate–hairy at node.
Leaves whorled, 4—5(—6) per whorl, simple and sessile fused across node, without obvious stipules; stipules 2, indistinguishable from leaves (treated here as leaves); blade oblong–linear to narrowly oblanceolate, (2.5—)6—15 × 1—2.4 mm, bright green, broadly tapered at base, entire with margins not inrolled under or wavy, obtuse at tip, midrib only conspicuous and raised on lower surface, upper surface smooth, lower surface margins and midrib with some small, backward–pointing teeth.
Inflorescence cymelike on short lateral shoots, axillary generally not paired at nodes, shoot with 1—2 internodes at top with a stalked terminal flower, a stalk with 2 flowers, and a leafy shoot which having future fertile nodes, bracteate, glabrous like shoot; bractlets at fertile node 2(—3) and opposite, subtending a pedicel of a terminal flower and the 2–flowered peduncle, spreading, leaflike, oblanceolate, ca. 5 × 1 mm or 1 smaller (3); pedicel and peduncle cylindric, at anthesis < 3 mm long, glabrous.
Flower bisexual, radial, 2 mm across; perianth (corolla) 4–lobed, of 1 whorl, cymbal–shaped (rotate), ca. 1.2 mm long, white; tube saucerlike, ± 0.4 mm long; lobes spreading, ovate, ± 0.9 × 0.6—0.7 mm, inconspicuously 3–veined; stamens 4, fused to corolla tube decurrent from near base and free slightly below sinuses between lobes; filaments erect, cylindric, ± 0.35 mm long, white; anthers dorsifixed, dithecal, ca. 0.25 mm long, light yellow, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen light yellow; nectary disc on top of ovary as low, green rim surrounding base of style, nectar present; pistil 1; ovary inferior, conspicuously 2–lobed, 0.9—1 × 0.6 × 0.5 mm, yellow–green, smooth, glabrous, 2–chambered, each chamber with 1 ovule; styles 2 (fused) erect, 0.4—0.45 mm long, 2–branched, the branches club–shaped; stigmas exserted just below level of anthers, capitate.
Fruit schizocarp, 2–chambered forming 2 dry, 1–seeded nutlets (mericarps) with fruit wall ± fused to seed coat; mericarp, spubspheroid, 1.5—2 mm, length > width, brownish, lacking prickles and hairs.
A. C. Gibson