姬兰拉拉藤 ji lan la la teng

Galium parisiense Linnaeus var. brachypodum Boissier; G. transcaucasicum Stapf.

Herbs, annual, ascending, branching from base. Stems (4-)8-30(-40) cm tall, tender, 4-angled, with retrorsely aculeolate angles and numerous, rather short internodes. Leaves at middle stem region in whorls of (5 or)6-8(or 9), ± sessile; blade drying papery, linear-elliptic to narrowly oblanceolate, mostly glabrous but margins and sometimes abaxial vein sparsely to densely antrorsely aculeolate, base acute, apex acute-acuminate. Inflorescences narrowly thyrsoid, with axillary and terminal cymes mostly 2-6-flowered; peduncles as long or 2-4 × as long as subtending leaves, slightly divaricate, with 1 or 2 bracts, ± smooth; pedicels thin, 0.5-4 mm, reflexed and hardly elongated in fruit. Flowers hermaphroditic. Ovary obovoid to ellipsoid, ca. 0.8 mm, glabrous. Corolla white or greenish white, slightly cup-shaped, 0.8-1.2 mm in diam.; lobes ovate, acute to shortly apiculate. Mericarps subglobose to kidney-shaped, 0.8-1.5 mm, colliculate, glabrous.

Open habitats; ca. 700 m. Xinjiang (Yining) [Afghanistan, Nepal, N Pakistan, Tajikistan; SW Asia].

Galium ghilanicum belongs to the annual G. sect. Microgalium and is a taxon widespread in SW Asia. It is here recorded for the first time for China. In FRPS (71(2): 237. 1999) it was misidentified as G. aparine var. leiospermum (= G. aparine f. leiocarpum, G. spurium), from which it is clearly separable by its antrorsely (and not retrorsely) aculeolate leaf margins. The other Chinese representative of G. sect. Microgalium, G. tenuissimum, differs from G. ghilanicum mainly by its strongly elongated peduncles and pedicels.