Galium L.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
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Family
Rubiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Herbs, with 4-angled slender stems and branches, apparently verticillate leaves, and small flowers, mostly in axillary or terminal cymes or panicles. Flowers perfect, or in some species dioecious. Calyx-tube ovoid or globose, the limb minutely toothed, or none. Corolla rotate, 4-lobed (rarely 3-lobed). Stamens 4, rarely 3; filaments short; anthers exserted. Ovary 2-celled; ovules one in each cavity. Styles 2, short; stigmas capitate. Fruit didymous, separating into 2 indehiscent carpels, or sometimes only 1 of the carpels maturing. Endosperm horny; embryo curved; cotyledons foliaceous. [Greek, milk, from the use of G. vemm for curdling.] About 250 species, of wide distribution. The leaves are really opposite, the intervening members of the verticils being stipules. Type species: Galium Mollugo L.