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Bedstraw is the popular name of the different species of Galium, a genus of plants, of the order Rubiaceae. Of the sixteen species found in Britain one of the best known is the Yellow Bedstraw or Cheese-rennet (Galium verum), a common wayside plant, the flowers and roots of which afford yellow and red dyes. Goose-grass (Galium aparine) is another well-known member of the genus.
 Research Bedstraw
Cleaver or Goose Grass (Galium aparine) is a British plant with rough stems and six to eight leaves in a whorl with distinctive curled prickles. The flowers are axillary and greenish white. The fruit is rough with hooked prickles and the seed vessels are globular and tenacious, clinging to the coat of any animal that touches them. The alternative name of Goose Grass comes from the fact that geese like to eat the entire plant.
Research Cleaver
Galium is a genus of hardy annual and perennial plants belonging to the family Rubiaceae.
Research Galium
Lady's bedstraw (Galium verum) is a perennial herb of the family Rubiaceae with a creeping rhizome and decumbent or erect branched square stems. the leaves are linear and arranged in whorls of eight to twelve and have turned- under margins, a prominent midrib and are dark green and shiny above, pale and felted below. The flowers are small, bright-yellow and arranged in dense terminal panicles. The fruit is a smooth double achene, green at first and changing to black when dry.
Research Lady's Bedstraw
Woodruff (Galium odoratum) is a perennial carpeting herb of the family Rubiaceae with an unbranched, hairless, erect square stem that grows from a tangle of rhizomes and rootless in early spring. The tiny, lanceolate leaves are arranged in whorls of between six and eight and have forward-pointing prickles on the margins. The flowers are small, white, star-shaped and arranged in dichasial cymes. The corolla is funnel-shaped with the tube a little shorter than the free lobes. The fruit is a double achene with hooked, black-tipped bristles. Woodruff grows throughout Europe, and has been cultivated since the Middle Ages, being used to flavour wine and placed in linen cupboards to deter moths.
Research Woodruff
The yellow bed-straw (Galium verum) is a British plant which may be recognised by its whorls of thread-like leaves and its panicles of small yellow flowers in late summer.
Research Yellow Bed-Straw
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The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia
Southampton, United Kingdom
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