康定拉拉藤 kang ding la la teng

Herbs, perennial, erect to weak, up to 50 cm tall. Stems obtusely 4-angled, usually branched, ± retrorsely aculeolate on angles or glabrous. Leaves in whorls of 6, sessile; blade drying papery, lanceolate, 15-35 × 2.5-6 mm, glabrous, adaxially smooth or scaberulous along midrib and near margins, abaxially sparsely retrorsely aculeolate along midrib, base cuneate, margins sparsely to densely retrorsely aculeolate, flat to thinly revolute, gradually narrowed into acute to acuminate apex; vein 1. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, cymes many flowered; peduncles glabrous, smooth; bracts none or few, 1-2 mm; pedicels 1-4 mm. Ovary obovoid, 0.5-0.8 mm, glabrous. Corolla white to greenish, rotate, 2.5-3 mm in diam., lobed for 2/3 or more, glabrous; lobes 4, triangular-spatulate, acute to shortly acuminate. Mericarps ovoid, ca. 1 mm, glabrous, smooth or minutely granulose. Fl. Jun, fr. Aug.

● Valleys, open habitats of the montane zone; 3100-3700 m. Sichuan (Kangding).

Galium prattii apparently is endemic in Sichuan. It is often so close to forms of the reddish-purplish flowering G. blinii that only the longer lanceolate leaves, the more flower-rich cymes, and the white to greenish flower color of G. prattii help to separate them. Otherwise, G. prattii seems to link G. asperifolium and G. tokyoense. From the first it differs by less-bracteate inflorescences and less-acuminate corolla lobes, from the second by its leaves, which are lanceolate and apically more gradually narrowed (vs. subspatulate and apically rounded, mucronate).