Botanical name: Galium spurium    Family: Rubiaceae (Coffee family)
Synonyms: Aparine spuria, Galium aparine var. tenerum

Stickwilly is an annual, weak herb with stem rough to hairless, four-edged. Leaves are 4-6 in a whorl, elliptic, lanceshaped or inverted-lanceshaped, 1-3 x 0.5-1 cm, blunt or rarely pointed, midrib and margin retrorsely aculeolate, margin curled, leaf-stalk absent. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils and at branch-ends, in 1-7-flowered cymes, carried on flower-cluster-stalk. Flowers are white or greenish yellow, hairless, about 1 mm long, petals ovate, blunt. Flower-stalk mostly straight, 0.5-5 mm long, elongating and sometimes sharply bent just under the fruit. Fruit is didymous, hairless or hairy, 2-3 mm long, black when ripe. Stickwilly is widespread in the Temp. Northern Hemisphere, including the Himalayas. Flowering: June-August.

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The flower labeled Stickwilly is ...