Upright branching clumps reach 12–30 inches tall with 4-angled stems that are hairless or with tiny hairs (not directed downward). Small, flowers have 4 white to creamy, pointed petals, and grow in showy clusters on the branch tips. Note the leaves are stiff and whorled around the stem in sets of 4, and have 3 distinct veins.

FLOWER: June–September. Flowers about 1/4 inch wide (7 mm) in dense clusters on branch tips or on stalks from leaf axils. Fruits are dry paired capsules about 1/8 inch diameter (2 mm) with short bristly hairs and one seed each.

LEAVES: Whorled in 4s. Blades stiff, linear to lance-shaped, reaching 2 inches long (15–50 mm), 1/2 inch (12 mm) wide; distinctively 3-nerved, tip slightly rounded, margins lined with ciliate hairs, surfaces hairless or bottom with tiny hairs (not hooked) (use lens).

HABITAT: Moist sandy, gravelly soils; canyon bottoms, sunny slopes, stream sides, sagebrush, foothills, mountain meadows and openings; ponderosa-Douglas fir, spruce-fir-aspen forests.

ELEVATION: 5,300–11,150 feet.

RANGE: Rocky Mts., Pacific Northwest, Great Lake states eastward through New England; circumboreal.

SIMILAR SPECIES: NM has 13 species of Galium, or bedstraw. The widespread annual Cleavers, G. aparine, has whorls of 6–8 leaves and weak, prostrate stems covered with hooked hairs that cling to clothes. The perennial Mexican bedstraw, G. mexicanum (var. asperrimum in NM), in much the same range, has whorls of 5–8 leaves and stems with hooked hairs and short, straight (not hooked) nutlet hairs. Three-petal bedstraw, G. trifidum, in much the same range, has flowers with 3 petals, smooth nutlets, 4 round-tipped eaves per whorl, and trailing, tangled stems with hooked hairs.

NM COUNTIES: Mountains of NM in mid- to high-elevation, moist habitats: Bernalillo, Cibola, Colfax, Grant, Lincoln, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Union, Valencia