Flower:

Many clusters of usually 3 flowers arising from leaf axils and at the end of branching stems. Flowers are minute, about 1/16 inch across, have 3 white petals with pointed or blunt tips and stalks about ¼ inch long. Rarely a flower has 4 petals. Stamens are white; there are as many stamens as petals.

Leaves and stem:

Leaves are whorled in groups of 4, 5 or 6, mostly 5 or 6. Leaflets are irregularly spaced and sized, ½ to 1 inch long and up to about ¼ inch wide, with a blunt or rounded tip. Leaves and stems are rough to the touch. Stems usually sprawl, becoming tangled in each other and in surrounding vegetation.

Fruit:

Fruit is a pair of tiny, smooth round pods, each containing a seed. The fruit is as large as or smaller than the flowers and ripens to black.

Notes:

There are only 2 species of bedstraw with mostly 3-petaled flowers, the other being Galium trifidum (Three-petaled Bedstraw), which has leaves consistently whorled in 4s. G. obtusum (Blunt-leaf Bedstraw) also has leaves whorled in 4 to 6, but has larger flowers with 4 petals.