Plant: perennial herb; slender, stems erect, several to many, 15-40 cm high
Leaves: glabrous or puberulent, opposite, but often somewhat fascicled, 19-38 mm long, lanceolate, narrowly ovate, with acute or obtuse at apices; stipules pale or hyaline, 0.5-2 mm long, lanceolate, bifid or erose
INFLORESCENCE: few-flowered, becoming widely divaricate; pedicels filiform, 6-25 mm long, forming a bulbous swelling below the flowers
Flowers: calyx lobes inconspicuous, claw-shaped, curved inward toward the corolla, generally shorter than ovary hairs; corolla 4-8 mm long, pink or white, pubescent outside, dotted with tack-shaped hairs inside, the tube slender, the lobes lanceolate, spreading; stamens, style and bifid stigma included within corolla lobes
Fruit: obovoid, 3 mm long, densely covered with uncinate hairs, bifid when mature
Misc: Moist shaded places in coniferous forests and adjacent meadows; 1400-8000 m (4600-8600 ft); Jun-Sep
REFERENCES: Terrell, Edward E. 1995 Rubiaceae. Houstonia. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 29(l): 36.
General: Perennial, 15-40 cm tall; stems several to many, slender; herbage glabrous; rhizomes slender, creeping.
Leaves: Cauline, opposite, lanceolate or lance-linear, 1-5 cm long, 2-15 mm wide, glabrous, paler below, united at the base by inter-petiolar stipules, these minute, triangular, membranous, the apex 2-cleft or irregularly toothed; blades sessile.
Flowers: Inflorescence cyme-like, the flowers nearly sessile or on slender pedicels up to 2.5 mm long, erect, becoming reflexed in fruit; calyx lobes 4, 1-2 mm long, green, slender; corolla salverform, white to lavender or pink, the tube 3-4 mm long, lobes 4, 2-3 mm long, abruptly spreading; flowers May-October.
Fruits: Obovoid, 3 mm long, dry, indehiscent, eventually separating into 2 mericarps, surface densely covered with hooked bristles.
Ecology: Moist, shaded habitats, meadows, pinyon-juniper woodlands, ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests; 1700-2700 m (5500-9000 ft); Apache, Coconino, and Navajo counties; western and southwestern U.S., northern Mexico.
Notes: Galium spp. are differentiated from K. galioides by the presence of whorled leaves.
Editor: Springer et al. 2008
