腺叶拉拉藤 xian ye la la teng

Herbs, perennial, caespitose, procumbent or erect, 5-15 cm tall. Stems numerous from reddish rhizomes and roots, usually strongly branched, 4-angled, densely retrorsely strigose hairy, hispidulous at nodes. Leaves in whorls of 4, sessile or subsessile; blade drying subleathery, quite variable in shape, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, (2.5-)4-10(-14) × (0.6-) 1-3(-4.5) mm, sometimes with scattered hairs adaxially, on margins and on midrib abaxially, or mostly glabrescent, adaxially slightly shiny and papillose, abaxially matte and usually minutely glandular-punctate or -striate, base cuneate, margins revolute, apex acute or subobtuse; principal vein 1, lateral veins 2, weak. Inflorescences terminal and in axils of upper leaves, with few- to several-flowered and up to 2 cm long cymes; peduncles ± hairy, bracteate, ± divaricate in fruit; pedicels 1-2(-5) mm. Flowers usually sexually differentiated (dioecious or polygamo-dioecious?). Ovary obovoid, ca. 0.8 mm, with ± curved trichomes. Corolla yellowish, greenish, or ± brownish-reddish, rotate, 1.8-2.7 mm in diam.; lobes 4, ovate, obtuse or slightly acute. Mericarps reniform, 1.5-2 mm, mostly with ± uncinate trichomes of ca. 0.3 mm (very rarely also glabrous?), on straight or ± curved, up to 4 mm long pedicels. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Mountain slopes, river beaches, open shrublands and forests, grasslands, on rocks; 2300-3900 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan.

Galium glandulosum is mainly characterized by condensed habit, short and predominantly retrorse stem hairs, subleathery leaves, often with glandlike idioblasts on abaxial leaf sides, strongly bracteate cymes, sexual differentiation of flowers, and hooked trichomes on fruit. Glabrous-fruited specimens included by W. C. Chen in FRPS (71(2): 228. 1999) may belong to other species. Galium glandulosum and G. forrestii are members of the G. hirtiflorum group (see there) within G. sect. Platygalium s.l.