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Key to Galium, Key A: Bedstraws with leaves mostly in whorls of 4 (rarely a few in whorls of 5-6 in some species)
Rubiaceae
Galium
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https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/main.php?pg=show-key.php&keyid=40344
1 Largest leaves < 8 mm long; flowers white, yellow, or creamy; plant an annual, 0.5-3 dm tall; [clade VII]. | |
5 Larger leaves 2.5-25 mm wide, mostly 1.5-5 (-8)× as long as wide; fruits uncinate-hispid (except smooth in G. latifolium and G. arkansanum); flowers greenish, purplish, purple-and-cream, or yellow (in G. cruciata); leaves normally of very similar length and forming a symmetrical, neat whorl; [clade VII]. | |
6 Corollas greenish, purplish, purple-and-cream; flowers in terminal inflorescences; corolla tube longer. | |
11 Flowers (some of them) sessile or subsessile along the inflorescence branches; leaves 1.5-5 cm long, the larger usually > 2.5 cm long | |
11 Flowers all distinctly pedicelled; leaves 1-2.5 cm long | |
5 Larger leaves 1-6 mm wide, mostly 4-20× as long as wide (or 2-3.5× as long as wide in G. bermudense); fruits smooth or pubescent (if pubescent, the hairs not hooked at the end, though they may curve through their length, except uncinate in G. texense), either fleshy or dry; flowers white or creamy; leaves normally of differing lengths and also often forming asymmetrical, 'sloppy' whorls (the angles between the leaves not being 90°). | |
13 Fruits dry, and green, tan, or purplish; leaves herbaceous, deciduous, not glandular-punctate beneath. | |
19 Flowers and fruits borne on arcuate pedicels, (5-) 7-15 (-20) mm long and densely retrorsely scabrous | |
19 Flowers and fruits borne on straight pedicels, these (2-) 2.5-8 (-12) mm long and smooth. | |
20 Fruiting pedicels (4-) 5-8 (-12) mm long; pairs of fruits (3-) 3.5-5 mm across at maturity; leaves 2-3 (-4) mm wide | |
20 Fruiting pedicels (2-) 2.5-5 (-6) mm long; pairs of fruits 2-3 mm across at maturity; leaves (1.5-) 2-2.5 (-2.8) mm wide | |