description
Cleavers are herbaceous annual plants of the family Rubiaceae. Cleavers
creep along the ground and over the tops of other plants, attaching
themselves with the small hooked hairs which grow out of the stems and
leaves. The stems can reach up to three feet or longer, and are angular or
square shaped.
The leaves are simple, narrowly oblanceolate to linear, and borne in whorls of
six to eight.
Cleavers have tiny, star-shaped, white to greenish flowers, which emerge from
early spring to summer. The flowers are clustered in groups of two or three, and
are borne out of the leaf axils. The globular fruits grow clustered 1-3 seeds
together; and are covered with hooked hairs (a burr) which cling to animal fur,
aiding in seed dispersal.
common names & nomenclature
The generic name is derived from gala, the Greek word for milk—this
because a plant of the Galium genus was used in antiquity as a means to
curdle milk to make cheese. Numerous references assert that the etymology of
the species name is aparo, the Greek word for "seize"—the implication
being that the plant seizes (cleaves to) anything that passes, same reason
for the common name of cleavers.
Also known as:
bedstraw, catchweed, clabber grass, clivers, cleavers, coachweed, cleaverwort,
gravel grass, grip grass, goose grass, goose hair, gosling weed, hedge burrs,
milk sweet, poor robin, loveman, stick-a-back, sweethearts, savoyan,
scratchweed, barweed, hedgeheriff, robin-run-in-the-grass, mutton chops,
everlasting friendship, stickywilly, amor de hortelano, ladies' straw
