Galium cespitosum, Lam.

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1976, Flora Europaea. Volume 4. Plantaginaceae to Compositae (and Rubiaceae), Cambridge University Press : 34

126. G. cespitosum Lam. , Tabi. Encycl. Méth. Bot. 1: 262 (1792).

Plant blackish-brown when dry, forming a flat cushion up to c. 25 cm in diameter, quite glabrous and smooth, with slender tap-root, filiform stock and stolons. Stems (2*5-)3-5(-8) cm, with short internodes. Leaves (3-)3*5-5(-7) x 0-4-0-6 mm, usually in whorls of 8-10, linear, rather thin, shining, smooth; margins flat, more or less thickened; midrib occupying c. | of the width of leaf, indistinct; hyaline apex 0*5-1 mm. Inflorescence corymbose, leafy, very few-flowered; pedicels 1-3 mm. Corolla 2-4 mm in diameter, more or less flat, yellowish-white; lobes acute. Fruit c. 1 *5 mm, faintly papillose, shining. 2л = 22. Alpine schistose screes. • Pyrenees. Ga Hs.

In thezoneofcontactwith 85 ( G. pyrenaicum ), tetraploid hybrids are not rare. They differ from 126 particularly in the coarser leaves which do not turn so dark on drying, and in the more shortly pedicellate flowers with more infundibuliform corolla.