无梗拉拉藤 wu geng la la teng

Replaced synonym: Galium smithii Cufodontis, Oesterr. Bot. Z. 89: 236. 1940, not Galium smithii G. Don, Gen. Hist. 3: 660. 1834 [Sherardia erecta Smith, Fl. Graec. 2: 14. 1813].

Herbs, perennial, weakly procumbent to erect. Stems (5-)7-15(-30) cm, 4-angled, glabrous and smooth, rarely shortly hairy at nodes. Leaves in whorls of up to 5 or 6, subsessile; blade greenish brown and subleathery when dried, narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 3-12 × 1-2.5 mm, glabrous and smooth, very rarely with straight hairs adaxially or slightly retrorsely aculeolate on margins, base cuneate, margins thinly revolute, apex acute and shortly mucronate; vein 1. Inflorescences with terminal and lateral 1-3-flowered cymes on up to 10 mm long peduncles (often elongating in fruit) and with subsessile flowers on 0.5-3 mm long pedicels. Ovary subglobose, ca. 1 mm, densely covered with undeveloped trichomes. Corolla white, rotate, ca. 1.5 mm in diam.; lobes 4, ovate, obtuse. Mericarps ellipsoid, ca. 3 mm, with dense spreading yellowish brown uncinate trichomes ca. 0.7 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

● Meadows, alpine mountain slopes; 3800-4700 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang.

Galium glabriusculum is a well-documented species of the alpine subgroup (2) within the G. asperifolium complex (see under that species and G. acutum). It is similar to G. sungpanense and G. baldensiforme and mainly differs from the former by its narrower and more leathery leaves and from both by the nearly total lack of indumentum.