It is widespread across most of Europe plus northern Africa and southern Asia, from Norway, Portugal and Morocco to China.

It is also naturalized in Australia, the Canary Islands, Mauritius, Madeira, Réunion, Brazil, Argentina, and scattered locales in North America (mostly California and Oregon).

[1][2][3][4] Galium tricornutum is an annual herb with trailing or climbing stems up to about 35 centimeters in length.

Leaves are arranged in whorls of 6 to 8 about the stem and are narrow, pointed, and bordered with prickles.

This plant is sometimes a weed of grain fields,[5][6][7] but it has been driven to the edge of extinction in the UK by drastically changed farming practices over the past 50 years.