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Fen Bedstraw

Fen Bedstraw

Galium uliginosum

Identify the Fen Bedstraw from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

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How common: Common

Fen Bedstraw is a small, slender plant with tiny white flowers. It grows in open places that are damp or only moderately dry, such as meadows, stream banks, ditches and shores, and also in other disturbed ground. The narrow leaves sit in neat rings around the stem, usually six at a level.

Did you know?

  • The leaves usually come six to a ring around the stem.
  • Its fruits are smooth, not covered in hooks.

About the species

Identification

Low, slender perennial, stems 5–30 cm, weak and often sprawling. Stems feel slightly rough and are four-edged. Leaves are narrow and pointed, rough to the touch, set in rings around the stem, usually six at each level. Flowers are very small (about 1.5–3 mm), white and four-pointed, in rather loose small clusters where the leaves meet the stem. Fruits are tiny double balls (about 1–1.5 mm) that are smooth, without hooked bristles. Smaller and less clingy than cleavers; the six-leaf rings help tell it from many other bedstraws. Flowers in July–August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

shore

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Found in damp to moderately dry grasslands, along streams and ditches, on shores and in light woodland, and also in lawns, fields, roadsides and other disturbed places. Common throughout the country.

Sources

Photo: Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Galium uliginosum - lodumadar Keilas.jpg

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Kulttuuriympäristöt: niityt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39287

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Gagea-Hepatica, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39287

Text: Pinkka: Pieni maatalouslajintuntemus - Puuvartiset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39287

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhtamatara

See also