Species
+

Galium odoratum (L.) Scop.

Möösch, Sweet woodruff, Sweetscented Bedstraw (EN), Sweetscented bedstraw

Climate known 58 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Galium odoratum, the sweet woodruff or sweetscented bedstraw, is a flowering perennial plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to much of Europe. It is widely cultivated for its flowers and its sweet-smelling foliage.

Text from Wikipedia, “Galium odoratum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Galium

Galium is a large genus of annual and perennial herbaceous plants in the family Rubiaceae, occurring in the temperate zones of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Some species are informally known as bedstraw.

Text from Wikipedia, “Galium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Rubiaceae
Described by
(L.) Scop.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +49
Wild records
721 in range· 219 open

At a glance

Warmest month
22°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
891mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 85 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–35DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 891 mm a year, wettest July at 85 mm, driest April at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -9.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Asperula eugeniae K.Richt.; Asperula matrisylva Gilib.; Asperula odora Salisb.; Asperula odorata L.; Asperula odorata var. trifida Sennen and 6 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (637 mm of 891 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 17.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 891 mm a year, wettest July at 85 mm, driest April at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

891 mm a year at the habitat, 637 mm of it June to January. Wettest month July at 85 mm, driest April at 54 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 651 mm to 1365 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 3, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -9.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -9.0 °C, the absolute minimum -20.3 °C, about 68 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -1.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -6.2 °C to 1.4 °C), warmest day 22.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -9.0 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 68% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 4 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Jul; mean night from -2 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 891 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 606 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -20.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°frost25.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-20.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 4–35RH 59–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 606 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C4 / 0–65 / 1–79 / 5–1013 / 10–1417 / 14–1920 / 17–2322 / 20–2522 / 19–2418 / 16–2014 / 11–158 / 5–104 / 1–6
Night °C-2 / -6–1-2 / -6–11 / -2–34 / 2–58 / 7–1011 / 10–1314 / 12–1514 / 12–1511 / 9–127 / 5–83 / -1–5-1 / -5–2
Rain mm75 / 33–10259 / 34–8569 / 39–10454 / 39–9172 / 53–12379 / 65–13085 / 63–13481 / 66–13678 / 59–12480 / 51–11878 / 51–10881 / 47–117
DLI5 / 4–910 / 8–1518 / 16–2228 / 26–3033 / 32–3535 / 33–3734 / 32–3729 / 26–3219 / 18–2312 / 10–166 / 5–104 / 3–7
RH %68 / 63–7065 / 61–6863 / 59–6559 / 57–6260 / 57–6260 / 58–6260 / 57–6361 / 57–6363 / 60–6465 / 63–6767 / 65–7068 / 64–71

Each figure is the median across the 606 grid cells holding the 713 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 683:3850 (55.825, 12.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -20.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -9.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 606 distinct grid cells holding the 713 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 683:3850 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 56.00_12.500, lapse-corrected +8 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 27 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Corse, France, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Sicilia, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Algeria, Altay, Krasnoyarsk, West Siberia, Primorye, Sakhalin, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey, China South-Central, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Japan, Korea· introduced: Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Vermont
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker51.431, 7.03 · in the densest population, 461 records (64% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 721 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 219 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 193 km away. 11 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 8 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 721 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Galium odoratumGalium odoratumGalium odoratumGalium odoratumGalium odoratumGalium odoratumGalium odoratumGalium odoratum

Photographs: (c) Vladimir Atachkin, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (6); (c) jvilla, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Galium odoratum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Medicinal plants extracts affect virulence factors expression and biofilm formation by the uropathogenic Escherichia coli
Dorota Wojnicz, Alicja Z. Kucharska, Anna Sokół‐Łętowska, Marta Kicia (2012) · Urological Research
Antioxidant and burn healing potential of Galium odoratum extracts.
Niloofar Kahkeshani, Behnaz Farahanikia, Parvin Mahdaviani, Amir Hossein Abdolghaffari (2013) · PubMed
Spatial patterns of maternal lineages and clones of Galium odoratum in a large ancient woodland: inferences about seedling recruitment
Birgit Ziegenhagen, Ronald Bialozyt, Vivian Kuhlenkamp, Inge Schulze (2003) · Journal of Ecology
Effects of pH and aluminium on growth of Galium odoratum (L.) scop. in flowing solution culture
Malinda Andersson (1992) · Environmental and Experimental Botany
BRITISH RUST FUNGI: ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
D. M. Henderson (1979) · Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Cover Crops Influence Meadow Vole Presence in Organic Orchards
Michel R. Wiman, Elizabeth Kirby, David Granatstein, Thomas P. Sullivan (2009) · HortTechnology
Composition of the Essential Oils ofGalium aparineL. andGalium odoratum(L.) Scop. from Turkey
K. Hüsnü Can Başer, Т. Оzеk, N. Kırımer, D. Deliorman (2004) · Journal of Essential Oil Research

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 11 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.