Biorepository Data Portal

Perennial herb with a creeping rhizome 20 cm - 0.5 m tall Leaves: in whorls of four to six, 5 mm - 2 cm long, linear to narrowly elliptic with a blunt tip, one-veined, often roughly hairy along the margins and sometimes on the midrib beneath. Flowers: mostly in two's or three's, on 2 - 4 mm long straight stalks, whitish, 1 - 1.5 mm wide, more or less flat and circular in outline, with three short, blunt lobes. Stamens four, shorter than corolla. Styles two, short. Fruit: dry, indehiscent, 1 - 2 mm long, spherical, paired, separating when ripe, one-seeded. Stems: numerous, weak, often scrambling over other plants, slender, four-angled, often much branched, roughly hairy on the angles or essentially hairless.

Similar species: No information at this time.

Flowering: late June to early October

Habitat and ecology: Woods, marshes, roadside ditches, and other wet areas.

Occurence in the Chicago region: native

Etymology: Galium comes from the Greek word gala, meaning milk, referring to the plants that are used to curdle milk. Tinctorium means "used for dyeing."

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Very much like G. trifidum, of which it is often considered to be a var. or ssp., but said to be distinct in the field; differing as indicated in the key; pedicels consistently glabrous. Moist or swampy places, usually in circumneutral or somewhat alkaline soils; Nf. to Fla. and Hispaniola, w. to Minn., Mo., Tex., and Mex. Most plants of our range belong to the var. tinctorium, with the mericarps 2-3 mm and the pedicels rarely over 5 mm. The chiefly more southern var. floridanum Wiegand extends n. to the s. fringe of our range and along the coast to Mass.; it is more robust, with the mericarps 3-4 mm, and pedicels commonly 5-8 mm in fr.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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