Plant: perennial herb; Polygamous perennials, variously glabrate, velvety, scabrous or hispid, but hairs not hooked; STEMS several to many, 15-50 cm high from suffrutescent bases

Leaves: 4 per node, 7-20 mm long, linear, oblanceolate, rarely elliptic, narrowed gradually to broad insertions, narrowed abruptly to acute, often pungent, apices

Flowers: in diffuse inflorescences, the branchlets divaricate and much exserted; corollas red, pink, or rarely yellow, rotate, mostly glabrous, the tips usually long and slender

Fruit: FRUITS with long straight hairs

Misc: Moist banks and sheltered slopes, in partial shade; 1000-2650 m (3500-8700 ft); May-Nov

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

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous to suffrutescent perennials, 15-60 cm tall, stems several to many, slender, erect to ascending, pubescent with small, stiff hairs (hirtellus), herbage often pungent.

Leaves: Opposite, whorled, 4 per node, linear, oblanceolate, or rarely elliptic, 5-20 mm long, narrowing gradually to broad insertions at the bases as well as abruptly to acute apices.

Flowers: Very small, red, pink, or rarely yellow, corollas 1-2 mm wide, with long-acuminate lobes, mostly glabrous, the tips usually long and slender, polygamous, flowers borne in diffuse inflorescences, the branchlets divaricate and much exserted.

Fruits: Fruits 1-2 mm in diameter, surfaces with long, straight, white hairs.

Ecology: Found on moist banks and sheltered slopes, in partial shade, from 3,500-9,000 ft (1067-2743 m); flowering May-November.

Distribution: California and Nevada, east to Texas.

Notes: This species of Galium can become somewhat bushy and large with age.

Ethnobotany: There is no use recorded for this species, but other species in this genus have uses.

Synonyms: Galium frankliniense, G. rothrockii, G. wrightii var. rothrockii

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012

Etymology: Galium is from the Greek word gala, "milk," and alluding to the fact that certain species were used to curdle milk while wrightii is named after William Greenwood Wright (1831-1912), one of the first lepidopterists in California, author of Butterflies of British Columbia, The Butterflies of the West Coast of the United States (1905), Colored Plates of the Butterflies of the West Coast (1907), and Butterfly Hunting in the Desert.