Wall valantia

Valantia muralis, the wall bedstraw, is a small slender prostrate or ascending annual herb of the family Rubiaceae growing only 3-15 cm tall and native around the Mediterranean basin from the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa through southern Europe to the Levant and Macaronesia. The plant forms low spreading mats from a thread-like taproot, with slender quadrangular smooth or minutely roughened stems that branch from the base. The leaves are arranged in whorls of four at each node and are small, broadly obovate or oblanceolate, 3-8 mm long, glabrous, fleshy, with a single midvein and a fine apical point. The minute greenish-yellow flowers are borne in small axillary cymes of 3 flowers; the central flower is bisexual with a tubular four-lobed corolla about 1 mm across, while the two lateral flowers are usually staminate or sterile. The fruit is a small smooth ovoid nutlet that is shed enclosed in a hardened, often slightly hooked perigynium formed by the modified sterile flower pedicels, an unusual dispersal structure characteristic of the genus. It grows on dry rocks, old walls, calcareous cliffs, ruderal habitats and sandy ground at low elevations.