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Galium boreale L., Northern Bedstraw

Account Summary

Native, occasional and rather local. Circumpolar boreo-temperate.

1836; Mackay, J.T.; Carrickreagh Bay, Lower Lough Erne.

June to October.

Growth form and preferred habitats

Northern Bedstraw is a perennial with a creeping, rooting, stolon-like stock. It is readily distinguished by its stiffish, stout, brittle, erect, almost smooth, glabrous, square stems, 25-50 cm tall. The stems bear lanceolate to narrowly ovate leaves, 15-25 mm long, in whorls of usually four but up to eight, each bearing three prominent veins. There are short, rough hairs on the veins underneath and also on the leaf margins. The small, white flowers are borne in tight clusters on the branched inflorescence from June to August, and stems and young leaves are sometimes tinged copper or purplish brown. It often forms mats or tufts of growth thanks to its horizontal stolons and branching nature, but this is not always possible or obvious in taller turf vegetation.

G. boreale is mostly, but not exclusively (see below), found in moist, upland pastures and in rocky situations, and it always shows a very definite preference for base-rich soils and limestone terrain. In Scotland, it grows at altitudes up to 1060 m, but it also occurs on stabilised coastal sand-dunes (Garrard & Streeter 1983; Sell & Murrell 2006).

Fermanagh occurrence

A sparse to frequent perennial growing in base-rich soils among rocks, shingle, limestone pavement and moist, stony meadows on the shores of the larger lakes and by at least one of the 'Green Lough' limestone turlough lakes near Fardrum. Turloughs are 'vanishing lakes' found in limestone districts that drain vertically rather than horizontally into subterranean caves. They also tend to not have regular, fixed inflow and outflow streams and in dry summer weather their water generally disappears and the 'bottom' converts to a short, grassy turf.

Strangely, apart from the foregoing list of suitable habitats, G. boreale is totally absent elsewhere in the county. Although in other VCs in B & I, Northern Bedstraw is sometimes found by mountain streams and on screes and cliff ledges, it has never been recorded from such habitats anywhere in Fermanagh (Ratcliffe 1977; Flora of Connemara and the Burren).

In Fermanagh, G. boreale has been recorded in 23 tetrads, 4.4% of those in the VC. As the tetrad distribution map indicates, it is most frequent around the lowland limestone shores and islands of Upper Lough Erne. 

Flowering reproduction

G. boreale produces small bisexual flowers, 3.0 mm diameter, in rather dense, terminal, leafy, panicle clusters from June or early July to late August. In the flowers, the calyx is absent, being represented only by an annular ridge on the receptacle. The four petals are white, ovate, each with an inflexed (apiculate) tip and the corolla tube is very short. The four stamens have very short filaments, only 0.5-1.0 mm long. The flowers secrete nectar and are pollinated by a variety of small insects (Sell & Murrell 2006). The fruit consists of two single-seeded nutlets, 1.5-2.0 mm, olive-brown, rough textured and covered with tiny, white, appressed, hooked bristles (Butcher 1961; Sell & Murrell 2006).

The current author (RSF) has not been able to obtain any information on the regular level of seed production for G. boreale. There does not appear to be any obvious mechanism enabling seed dispersal, since the bristles on the nutlets are too small to imagine them attaching to passing animals and, anyway, they are appressed. Dispersal of the seeds of numerous Galium species, including G. boreale, are listed by Ridley (1930, p. 361) as having been reportedly transported internally by cattle. Also, there are seven estimates of seed survival in soil reported in the NW Europe soil seed bank survey, four of which regard it as transient, ie persisting for less than one year, and three estimates recognise that seed is present in soil, but could not conclude how long it might survive (Thompson et al. 1997).

British and Irish occurrence

Overall, G. boreale has a very pronounced northern and western distribution across B & I and is regarded as an indicator of near-neutral, ± infertile soils (Hill et al. 1999; Preston et al. 2002). It is locally frequent in Britain northwards from Lancashire and Yorkshire into Scotland which definitely is its stronghold in these islands. Having said this, the species is curiously absent from most of the western Scottish isles, including Islay, Jura, Tiree, Coll, Rum, the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. Northern Bedstraw does also occur in Cumberland and Westmorland, and very locally in N & S Wales (W.R. Meek, in: Preston et al. 2002).

While G. boreale was never very common or widespread in the north of Ireland, the species has been decreasing in the NE for at least 60 years (BSBI Atlas 2; FNEI 3). The New Atlas hectad map, however, includes a cluster of modern records from mid-Antrim (H39). G. boreale has become all but extinct around low-lying Lough Neagh (Flora of Lough Neagh), so it is interesting that it is as well represented around both parts of Lough Erne and Lough Macnean as is the case (see the Fermanagh tetrad map).

In the RoI, G. boreale is local and rather thinly scattered down the W coast from Co Sligo (H28) to N Kerry (H2), with the Burren and Connemarra and along the River Shannon being the principal locations (W.R. Meek, in: Preston et al. 2002).

European and world occurrence

G. boreale has an overall Circumpolar boreo-temperate distribution and in Eurasia is present from N & C Europe including Iceland and the S tip of Greenland southwards to Spain, Portugal, N Italy, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Further east it stretches from the Caucasus region into N & C Asia and across to Japan. It also stretches across N America in a wide mid-latitude belt (Hultén & Fries 1986, Map 1515; Clapham et al. 1987).

Names

The genus name 'Galium' is a name in Dioscorides derived from the Greek 'gala', 'milk', that was first given to Galium verum, a herb widely used to curdle milk for cheese making (Johnson & Smith 1946; Gilbert-Carter 1964). The Latin specific epithet 'boreale' means 'northern' (Gilbert-Carter 1964). The English common name 'Northern Bedstraw' is a straightforward invented 'book name' derived from the species' relationship with Galium verum, Lady's Bedstraw. See the current author's (RSF's) account of that species on this website.

Threats

None.

References

Ratcliffe, D.A. (1977); Webb, D.A. and Scannell, M.J.P. (1983); Harron, J. (1986); Hackney, P.( Ed.) and Beesley, S., Harron, J. and Lambert, D. (1992); Perring, F.H. and Walters, S.M.(eds.) (1962, 1976); Hill, M.O., Mountfield, J.O., Roy, D.B. and Bunce, R.G.H. (1999); Clapham et al. 1987; Hultén & Fries 1986; Gilbert-Carter 1964; Johnson & Smith 1946; Preston et al. 2002; Butcher 1961; Sell & Murrell 2006; Garrard & Streeter 1983; Ridley 1930; Thompson et al. 1997.