Flowers and leaves. Photo: Valter Jacinto, Portugal

Flowering plants. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Peter Ormay, ACT

Flowering plants. Photo: Don Wood, south coast, NSW

Line drawing in Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. Vol. 3: 266.

Common Name

Field Madder

Family

Rubiaceae

Notes

Introduced annual forb to 30cm tall, or prostrate to sprawling or scrambling. Leaves in whorls of 4-6, 0.5-1.6cm long, 1.5-4mm wide, flat, hairless or rough hairy mostly along the margins, tips pointed, rarely with rigid sharp points. Flowers tubular with 4 'petals', pink to mauve in stalkless groups of 4-10 flowers at the bases of 8-10 leaf-like bracts, at the tops of the stems or on stalks arising from the bases of the leaves.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Sherardia~arvensis