Waxy bedstraw

Galium glaucum, the glaucous or waxy bedstraw, is a slender perennial herb in the family Rubiaceae, native to dry calcareous grasslands, rocky slopes and open woodland margins across central and southern Europe and western Asia. From a creeping rhizome it produces erect to slightly arching, four-angled, smooth, glaucous-blue stems 30-80 cm tall, bearing whorls of eight to ten narrow, linear, blunt-tipped, conspicuously waxy bluish-green leaves 1-3 cm long that distinguish it from the otherwise similar lady's bedstraw. In early to mid-summer it bears large, much-branched terminal panicles of many small, four-lobed, fragrant white flowers about 3 mm across, the whole inflorescence appearing frothy. The fruit is a small dry mericarp pair. It is occasionally cultivated in dry borders for its attractive foliage and airy flower heads.