Galium boreale L., morph (Finland, Lohja, Vanhakylä,
2002). – Image: Harri
Harmaja (scanned from dried specimen).
– I have made observations on considerable variability in the
morphological features of G. boreale (Rubiaceae) in Finland. A curious form found by me in
Lohja (S. Finland) is presented in the image above. The leaves (some upper ones
were present) and bracts are
deviating as being very broad, elliptical, and the inflorescence is contracted. At
the first sight the plant resembles the southern G. rotundifolium L. but
the latter differs having somewhat hairy stems, small bracts, and long pedicels.
G. boreale has a wide circumboreal ditstribution and is known to be fairly variable. The following
characters, in particular, display variability: width and shape of leaves; size
and shape of bracts; amount of hairiness in internodes of stem, in leaves, and
in mericarp; kind of these hairs; exact colour of flowers (whether pure white or
with a faint tinge of yellow); fleshiness of the mericarp; the ploidy level of the genome. G.
boreale of Europe was once "split" into several species by Mikhail Klokov but this
procedure has not been approved by others. Even attempts to separate only one
species, G. septentrionale Roem. & Schult., from G. boreale on the basis of true or
supposed differences in stem indumentum and ploidy level have been unsuccessful.
Created August 30, 2004.