Galium obliquum

Galium obliquum is a slender perennial herb in the family Rubiaceae, native to a restricted region of southwestern Europe in the western and southern Alps along the French-Italian border, extending south to Tuscany and west to the Tarn-et-Garonne in southern France. It typically inhabits dry, rocky calcareous slopes, screes and open garrigue at montane elevations. Plants form erect, thin, square stems 10 to 40 cm tall, arising from a creeping woody rootstock. As in other bedstraws, the linear to narrowly lanceolate leaves are arranged in regular whorls, with up to ten leaves per node, each leaf one-veined and somewhat rigid with a fine apical point. The inflorescence is a loose, paniculate cyme of small, four-lobed, white to pale yellow flowers, each only a few millimetres across. Fruits are paired dry mericarps that split at maturity. The species was first formally described by Dominique Villars in 1779.