Common name:
Heath bedstraw
Family:
Scientific name:
Galium saxatile
Main flower color:
Range:
All across the UK; least common in parts of southeast England
Height:
Up to 40 cm; prostrate, mat-forming stems with ascending flowering shoots
Habitat:
Heaths, damp woodland and acidic grassland
Flowers:
Around 3 mm in diameter, with four relatively broad, ovate white petals, blunt-pointed at the tip. In small, open, leafy clusters
Fruit:
Spherical nutlets, purple ageing to green, covered in tiny warts
Leaves:
Narrowly ovate to oblanceolate, spine-tipped, hairless, up to 10 mm long, with forwards-pointing bristles along the margins; in whorls of between six and eight on hairless stems which are square in cross-section
Season:
June to August
Rarity:
★★★★★
