Fen bedstraw

Galium uliginosum, the fen bedstraw, is a slender, sprawling perennial herb of the family Rubiaceae with weak, four-angled stems 10 to 60 cm long that are rough with tiny backward-pointing prickles, allowing the plant to scramble through other vegetation. The narrow, single-veined leaves are arranged in whorls of six to eight and bear minute bristle-tipped margins. From summer into early autumn it produces small, loose clusters of tiny four-petalled white flowers. The fruit is a small warty twin nutlet. Native to Europe and temperate Asia, fen bedstraw grows in wet, base-rich habitats such as fens, marshes, wet meadows, flushes and the margins of ponds and ditches, where it is often found tangled among taller marsh plants.