Cleavers (Galium aparine)

There cannot be a hedgerow that does not have cleavers amongst its wayside flowers. It is widespread in Britain, across Europe and in to Asia. It has colonised the Americas and Australasia and in the USA it is designated an obnoxious weed!

I called it a wayside flower but the flowers are very small and many people may not even realise it has a bloom. It is better known as a vigorous green herbaceous plant that can probably hold its own with any other plant as a competitor as it can climb up between other vegetation. The flowers turn into small, prickly seeds or burrs that can cling to clothing and so easily attach to animal fur and birds feathers which is how it spreads itself. These clinging burrs earn it the country name of Sticky Willie although we knew this as goose-grass when I was young and apparently geese do like to eat it

For some people skin contact with this plant can cause a rash and yet the plant is supposedly edible. As long as they are gathered before the fruits appear the leaves can be cooked and eaten as a vegetable but you should not attempt to eat it raw because of the multitude of hooks it possesses to enable it to climb.  Cleavers is in the same botanical family as coffee and apparently the 'fruits' of cleavers have often been dried, roasted and used as a coffee substitute because it contains less caffeine!