Galium murale

Tiny bedstraw

Family: Rubiaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Tiny bedstraw is a naturalized annual herb found in northern and central Sierra Nevada foothills, Great Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, southern California coastal areas, and Peninsular Ranges in Riverside and San Diego counties, occurring in damp, mossy places and dry disturbed areas at elevations of 20 to 650 meters. Flowering from April to May, this plant produces tiny green to white flowers less than 1 millimeter long, with delicate ascending ovate lobes. Growing with erect to spreading stems 1 to 12 centimeters tall, it forms a slender, glabrous plant with minimal branching. Its leaves grow in whorls of 4 to 6, measuring 1 to 4 millimeters long, with obovate to oblanceolate shapes and acute tips often bearing a slender hair. The fruit develops as small sausage-shaped nutlets with uneven, hooked hairs, with long-hairy tips that aid in seed dispersal.

Habitat: Damp, mossy places, grassy hillsides, dry disturbed areas

Bloom period: Apr-May

Elevation: 20-650 m

Bioregions: NCoRI, n&ampc SNF, GV, SnFrB, SCo (Riverside Co.), PR (San Diego Co.)

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Butte, Contra Costa, Tuolumne, San Mateo, Stanislaus, Alameda, Riverside, San Diego, Los Angeles, El Dorado, Sonoma, Marin, Napa, Sacramento, Solano, Tulare, Colusa, Placer, Glenn, Tehama, Yuba, Nevada, Santa Barbara, Mendocino, Yolo, Fresno, Lake, Monterey

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.