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Rubiaceae family

Santa Catalina Island Bedstraw Galium catalinense

Native Specialist-bee host

Santa Catalina Island Bedstraw is a perennial shrub native to the lower 48 states. It blooms Feb – Jul. A host for pollen-specialist native bees.

More about this plant

Galium catalinense is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family known by the common name Santa Catalina Island bedstraw. It is endemic to two of the Channel Islands of California, where it grows along the coastal bluffs. It is a shrub growing erect to about a meter in maximum height with a rigid stem lined with whorls of four leaves each. The hairy leaves are generally lance-shaped and one to 2.5 centimeters long. The inflorescence emerging from leaf axils is a dense cluster of whitish flowers. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Perennial
In the garden
Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Feb – Jul — 84 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~19 caterpillar species

Galium supports ~19 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Galium in North America, including:

Costaconvexa centrostrigaria · geometer (inchworm) moth Epidemia helloides · gossamer-winged butterfly Epirrhoe alternata · Common Carpet Epirrhoe plebeculata · geometer (inchworm) moth Epirrhoe sperryi · geometer (inchworm) moth Epirrhoe tristata · Small Argent And Sable
+ 8 more species →
Grammia oithona · tiger moth Grammia turbans · tiger moth Hyles gallii · Bedstraw Hawk-Moth Hyles lineata · White-Lined Sphinx Idaea dimidiata · Single-Dotted Wave Lobocleta ossularia · Drab Brown Wave Nathalis iole · Dainty Sulphur Orthonama obstipata · geometer (inchworm) moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees specialist-bee host

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Galium is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024.
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (14) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[10] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[11] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[12] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[13] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[14] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
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PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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