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Published In: Flora Boreali-Americana (Michaux) 1: 78–79. 1803. (Fl. Bor.-Amer.) Name publication detailView in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 9/8/2017)
Acceptance : Accepted
Project Data     (Last Modified On 7/9/2009)
Status : Native

 

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4. Galium asprellum Michx. (rough bedstraw)

Map 2538

Plants perennial. Stems 15–120 cm long, spreading to loosely ascending or clambering, usually much-branched, roughened with minute, prickly, downward-curved hairs on and usually also between the angles, sometimes also pubescent around the stem nodes with short straight hairs. Leaves 5 or 6 per node, mostly spreading to very slightly ascending in orientation. Leaf blades 4–15 mm long, 1–5 mm wide, lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate or linear, angled to a sharply pointed tip, the midvein usually extended into a minute, sharp point, angled or truncate at the base, the undersurface not glandular, glabrous, the venation with only the midvein visible, the margins with short, stiff, prickly hairs and often somewhat curved under. Inflorescences terminal and axillary from the upper leaves, not pendant, positioned over the leaves, consisting of small panicles (occasionally some of these reduced to simple clusters) with mostly 1–3 branch points and short to relatively long, ascending branches. Flowers mostly several to numerous, the stalks 1–5 mm long. Corollas 1.0–1.2 mm long, 4-lobed, white. Fruits 0.8–1.0 mm long, 1.5–2.0 mm wide, the surface glabrous, smooth. August.

Uncommon, known thus far only from a single, historical specimen from DeKalb County (northeastern U.S. west to Wisconsin and Missouri; Canada). Habitat unknown, but possibly bottomland forests (based on specimens from other states).

The presence of this species in Missouri was first suggested without documentation by Gleason (1952), but was not confirmed until the present research. Galium asprellum can be distinguished vegetatively from some other Galium species by its stem nodes that are surrounded with a ring of spreading pubescence. This feature is also found in G. boreale, G. concinnum, G. obtusum, and G. tinctorium. The Missouri collection represents an unusual, somewhat disjunct, southwestern locality for G. asprellum. If more data were available about the population from which it was harvested, a case could be made that the species represents a relict in Missouri, surviving from glaciated times when our state had a cooler climate.

 
 


 

 
 
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