Plant: perennial creeping or climbing herb; stems to 90 cm long; STEMS and leaf margins with few to many aculeate hairs

Leaves: 5-12 (commonly 6) at each node

Flowers: perfect, with generally (not always) campanulate corollas

Fruit: FRUITS with well developed or obscure uncinate hairs

REFERENCES: Dempster, Lauramay T. 1995. Rubiaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Sci. 29(l): 29.

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Perennial, creeping herb with angled stems, stems often winged, to 90 cm long, leaves and stems with few to many stinging hairs.

Leaves: Small, thin, linear to lanceolate, appearing whorled, with 5-12 (commonly 6) at each node.

Flowers: Small, perfect, white, with throat flaring to nearly rotate with campanulate corollas, in panicles or with flowers borne on shorter pedicels in the axils.

Fruits: Paired fruits, tuberculate, glabrous, or covered with hooked hairs, indehiscent. Seeds with a deeply concave face.

Ecology: Found along streams and in moist places from 4,000-9,500 ft (1219-2896 m), flowers June-October.

Notes: The keys to this species are the campanulate corollas, the leaves in whorls of 6 or more, and the stinging hairs of the leaves and stems. Not to be confused with G. proliferum, which although G. mexicanum has a similar synonym, is different from G. piliferum. Ours is likely subsp. asperrimum.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Galium is from the Greek word gala, milk, an allusion to the fact some species are used to curdle milk, while mexicanum means of or from Mexico.

Synonyms: Galium caripense, G. mexicanum var. glabratum, G. mexicanum var. platyphyllum, G. piliferum

Editor: LCrumbacher, 2011