I photographed this today September 28I was thinking it was a brassica or maybe a ranuncula ,and then maybe I figured out it was a galium, but I can't figure it out. What is it. here's a picture of it...





I live in the sand hills in Aberdeen North Carolina. I photograph this along the railroad tracks So obviously dry conditions

It looks like the native St. Andrew's Cross, Hypericum hypericoides ssp. multicaule: https://uswildflowers.com/deta...

Yes it matches perfectly. Radford page 710

"Shrub 3-10 dm tall with erect or ascending, wing-angled branches, older bark shreddy. Leaves elliptic, linear, or oblanceolate, 8-26 mm long, 1-7 mm wide , acute or obtuse, base cuneate, notched. Flowers solitary, axillary, or in small cymules; bracts paired, at base of sepals; pedicels ascending, 1-5 mm long. Outer sepals 2, ovate, or widely elliptic , 5-12 mm long, 3.5-7 mm wide, acute, base frequently subcordate, inner sepals usually obsolete ; petals 4, 6-10 mm long; styles 2, partly fused, 0.5-1 mm long, ovary 1-locular. Capsules ovoid, 4-9 mm long, 2.5-4 mm broad; seeds black, ca. 1 mm long. May-Aug. Dry woods; chiefly cp. and pied. [Va., Ga., Fla., Ala., Miss., Tenn., Ky.] Ascyrum hypericoides L.— S, F, G."