Hedge Bedstraw - Galium album
Medium to tall plant, sometimes scrambling, usually hairless, stems square and smooth. Rootstock usually reddish with underground stolons. Leaves oblong to elliptical in whorls of 6 to 8 thin and rather pale green one veined. Flowers four parted white 2 to 3 mm in loose branched clusters.
Open woods, scrub, rough grassland and hedgebanks.
June to September
Perennial
Widespread in Britain and fairly common in England at least.
Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 86 of the 617 tetrads
Graham Calow
Countesthorpe Road, Cosby
01 July 2016
Graham Calow
Countesthorpe Road, Cosby
01 July 2016
Saharima Roenisch
Leicester Abbey Park, near Charter Street Footbridge
04 June 2020
Graham Calow
Fosse Meadows, Sharnford
15 August 2014
Graham Calow
Countesthorpe Road, Cosby
01 July 2016
David Nicholls
Ketton Quarry
13 June 2014
Ken Charity
Tonge. Gelscoe Lane
08 June 2022
Graham Calow
Countesthorpe Road, Cosby
20 May 2016 Fosse Meadows (taken 8.10.2007).JPG)
Graham Calow
Fosse Meadows, Sharnford
08 October 2007
David Nicholls
Cloud Wood
24 June 2011
Melinda Bell
Footpath through Harold Smalley Wood,Coalville
29 June 2022
 Fosse Meadows (taken 8.10.2007).JPG)
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Species profile
- Common names
- Upright Hedge Bedstraw
- Species group:
- flowering plant
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Gentianales
- Family:
- Rubiaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 144
- First record:
- 08/10/2007 (Calow, Graham)
- Last record:
- 15/03/2026 (Smith, Peter)
Total records by month
% of records within its species group
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David Nicholls
Bloody Oaks
02 July 2015
David Nicholls
Ketton Quarry
13 June 2014
David Nicholls
Ketton Quarry
13 June 2014
Graham Calow
Ketton Quarry
30 June 2011
David Gould
Aylestone Meadows, Leicester.
18 July 2015
Graham Calow
Ketton Quarry
30 June 2011
Graham Calow
Ullesthorpe Stewardship Farm
05 September 2012
egaten
Aylestone Meadows
03 October 2022
Geocrypta galii
The larvae of the gall midge Geocrypta galii produce smooth, spherical galls of a pinkish, greenish or even fully reddish appearance within the nodes of Lady’s Bedstraw and Hedge Bedstraw and may occur in large numbers where present. The galls can fuse together and encircle the stem. A single larva is found in each growth and is orange in colour. The galls turn brown with age and have an outer covering of short, shiny hairs.