太鲁阁猪殃殃 tai lu ge zhu yang yang

Herbs, perennial, procumbent to erect, condensed, 5-8 cm tall. Stems 4-angled, glabrous, smooth. Leaves in whorls of 4, sessile or subsessile; blade drying papery, rhombic-elliptic, elliptic, or obovate, 3-6 × 2-3.5 mm, glabrous, base acute to cuneate, margins flat or thinly revolute, apex acute to somewhat obtuse; vein 1. Inflorescences with terminal and axillary cymes, 1- or few flowered, 0.3-1.5 cm; peduncles glabrous, smooth, ebracteate; pedicels 0-2 mm. Ovary obovoid, ca. 0.4 mm, densely strigillose at sides. Corolla pale yellow, rotate, ca. 2 mm in diam.; lobes 4, triangular-oblong, acute. Mericarps ellipsoid, 1-1.5(-2) mm, with dense, appressed uncinate trichomes ca. 0.3 mm. Fl. and fr. summer-winter.

● Shady sites on limestone substrates; 1400-2700 m. Taiwan.

Galium tarokoense belongs to a group of high mountain taxa from Taiwan, including G. morii (see there). Its main differential characters are the lack of indumentum on most parts, the only 1-nerved leaves, and the short appressed fruit hairs.