Heath Bedstraw
Heath Bedstraw - Galium saxatile
Low to short hairless plant, with a lax prostrate mat of vegetative shoots and spreading or ascending flowering shoots. Stems are smooth, square and much branched. Leaves in whorls of 6 to 8 elliptical and broadest above the middle, the margins with forward pointing bristles. Flowers white, with four petals, 2.5 to 4 mm in lax short branched panicles.
Indicator Species - Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
Scrub and pasture on dry acid soils.
June to August.
Perennial
Widespread and fairly frequent in most of Britain.
Local in Leicestershire and Rutland but in suitable locations it can be abundant. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 65 of the 617 tetrads.
David Nicholls
The Brand, Woodhouse
15 June 2013
Graham Calow
Bradgate Park
15 June 2014
David Nicholls
Ulverscroft
21 June 2014
David Nicholls
Ulverscroft
14 July 2011
David Nicholls
Ulverscroft
21 June 2014
David Nicholls
Ulverscroft
14 July 2011
David Nicholls
Lea Meadows NR
15 May 2023
Graham Calow
Burbage Common and Woods
23 June 2012
Graham Calow
Burbage Common and Woods
13 June 2011
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Puccinia galii-verni
Puccinia galii-verni is a fungus which galls Bedstraws (Lady's Bedstraw, Heath Bedstraw, Fen Bedstraw) and rarely Crosswort. It usually affects the stem or underside of leaves, producing small orange-brown swellings with brown telia. There is no host alternation, and only telia are produced.