Galium lucidum

Galium lucidum, the shining bedstraw, is a perennial herb of the Rubiaceae family native to southern and central Europe, especially the Mediterranean basin. It grows from a slender creeping rhizome producing erect or ascending, four-angled, smooth stems thirty to eighty centimetres tall. The leaves are linear to narrowly lanceolate, one-veined, glossy and stiff, with finely roughened margins, and are arranged in whorls of six to twelve at each node, longer and narrower than in most related bedstraws. From early to late summer the plant bears large, much-branched, terminal panicles of many small, four-petalled, pure white, faintly fragrant flowers about three millimetres across. The fruit is a tiny, paired, smooth schizocarp. The species favours dry, sunny, calcareous slopes, garrigue, and rocky pastures.