Galium capense subsp. capense Thunb.

Perennial with a ± woody rootstock. Stems scrambling or climbing, (80)150-500(700) mm long, with few to many lateral branches; up to 4 mm in diam. and ± terete at the base, 0.5-1.5(2.5) mm in diam. and distinctly 4-angled in the mid-stem region, (at least younger parts) densely covered with short, curled, whitish hairs; often purplish. Longest internodes (8)10-35(40) mm. Middle cauline leaves in whorls of (6-)8(-10), 1-nerved, (3)5-12(15) x 0.5-1.5(2) mm, linear to narrowly lanceolate or oblanceolate, with a brownish-white mucro at the apex; surfaces often shiny, glabrous or occasionally with a few reversed prickles on the (strongly) reflexed margins. Synflorescences broadly pyramidial to ± cylindrical, paracladia usually many-flowered, flowers arranged in groups of (12)9-3(1), ultimate branches with (4)2-1 small, bracts or, ebracteate; peduncles (1)1.5-3 mm, glabrous, pedicels (l)2-4(5) mm, ± filiform, glabrous, usually strongly divaricate in fruit. Flowers 4-merous; corolla (2)2.5-4 mm in diam., rotate, bright to pale yellow; lobes much longer than wide, acute or sometimes slightly acuminate; stamina ca. half as long as the lobes, filaments thin; styles fused to the middle. Fruits dry, glabrous, ± tuberculate or granulate; mericarps subglobose, each ca. 1 mm wide. Flowering Period: (August) September to December (January).