Galium aparine, (a.k.a. cleavers) the leggy, clingy velcro weed, can threaten to take over the world in Spring, then fades away to almost nothingness within a few weeks. The entire plant which is covered in bristles and hooked spines can stick to you, or leave its fuzzy, green, paired burrs, containing hundreds of seeds, to hitch a ride all over your clothing. This member of family Rubiaceae, is a relative of the coffee plants, (Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora,) and its tiny seeds contain a bit of caffeine. Rubiaceae is sometimes called the madder family of which many members serve as sources of red dye, particularly from the roots, or the bedstraw family, because various member plants served as mattress stuffing. Dye from galium aparine is said to permanently stain the bones of birds that eat the roots.
Other fun plants in the family Rubiaceae are Cephaelis acuminata and Cephaelis ipecacuanha, which were used to make Syrup of Ipecac. Older people remember this as the essential remedy to induce vomiting after poisoning. This practice lost favor in recent decades until the drug became no longer available in the U.S. for such purposes. The traditional and famous quinine was obtained from Cinchona calisaya and Cinchona succirubra trees (among other species), and used to treat malaria. This has long been replaced with numerous other remedies which have less effect on heart rhythm. Check here for a nice graphic, highlighting this family of plants.
Though not extensively studied, our Galium aparine is long used, and revered among herbalists as a potent alterative, lymphatic and diuretic. Paradoxically, an alterative doesn’t change you into something new. It restores you to a normal, healthy state by aiding homeostasis. Often, this is done by restoring normal waste elimination. Cleavers has this effect and more. From ancient times, there have been efforts to transfer the qualities of this herb to milk by wadding up the stems and using them as a sieve or filter through which to pour the milk.
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Cleavers, is also known as clivers, goose grass, velcro plant, and sticky willy, which fittingly accompanies the curious shape of the little burrs, or schizocarps. There are numerous other nicknames, most alluding to the clingy nature of the plant. The square stems are reminiscent of the mint family, but this non-mint has a whorled pattern of 6 to 8 thin elongated (lanceolate) leaves, each of which is blessed with numerous recurved hairs that allow them to stick to other vegetation and any passers by. The recurved hairs occupy the single underside vein of the leaf, while the top of the leaf has an even distribution of shorter hairs. Each leaf can reach 6 cm in length and about up to 8mm wide. Each stem can reach 2 meters (6 feet) in length, but requires the support of nearby plants, or others of its own kind in order to reach for the sun. Leaves and stems are edible when young, but might become a bit too prickly and for palatability as the plant matures. Tiny white, 4 petaled flowers, up to 3 mm across, adorn the plant, and these later form the seed filled burrs, which fade from bright green to purplish and then brown as the plant dries out. The flowers, emerge on cymes of 2-5 flowers from the axils (armpits of leaves ;-) . They are hermaphroditic and self pollinating. They are so tiny, no camera autofocus will catch them well. (Some specialized photographic equipment is high on our want list. Meanwhile, click here, and again on the gallery to enlarge 2 photos showing the flowers emerging from the cymes, and the seed pods. )
There is a lookalike plant, Galium spurium, the stems of which are more branched, with stiffer leaves. The flowers are more likely to be pale green to yellow, rather than white. It tolerates drier conditions than Galium aparine. Its presence has not been widely reported within the U.S.. Galium spurium is closely related, and is edible but regarded as a less palatable famine food. Numerous other Galium species, such as the woodruffs, dot the landscape, and though they have the whorled leaf pattern, they don’t stick to you.
Now that you know cleavers when you see it, what to do with it?? This is one of the staple alterative, nutritional herbs that is used in food quantities. It’s a respected part of the spring de-tox , herbal armamentarium. It has long been used to promote lymphatic drainage, thereby helping to move and clear stagnant body fluids and obstructions. As a diuretic, it is useful for helping to clear kidney stones, and sooth inflammations of the urinary tract. There are reports of Galium aparine traditional use as a febrifuge, for weight loss, the reduction of nodules under the skin, and cancer treatments. Cleavers has also been successfully used as a vulnerary, (wound healing). We found some great case reports of this usage in the British Medical journal of 6/16/1883, by Irish physician, F.J.B. Quinlan, along with suggestions on how to preserve silage of this valuable plant for out of season use. He was thrilled with the progress in healing severe ulcerations, bedsores, for which there had been few effective options for treatment.
Research which supports the vulnerary use of Cleavers has shown immune modulatory effects as well as antimicrobial activity. More polar extracts in ethanol/water mixtures showed little activity, whereas (lipophilic) chloroform extracts showed good in vitro activity against Staph aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans, but not good results against Escherichia coli and Proteus vulgaris. However, various ethanolic extracts did show immune stimulatory activity in vitro in lymphocyte blast assays. Another experiment demonstrated that the polysaccharides of Galium aparine contribute to both this immune stimulatory activity, and to antioxidant activity exhibited by flavonoids and iridoids in the polyphenol fraction. These findings give some credence to Dr. Quinlan’s use of the whole plant to heal the bedsores of his patients.
In vitro research shows some cytotoxic effects of methanol extracts of Galium aparine in two breast cancer cell lines, but not in untransformed (non cancer) breast epithelial cells. Apoptosis was the means of death in the one of the cell lines (MDA-MB-231) but necrotic death was induced the other cell line (MCF-7). It’s extra nice if an anti-cancer agent can be more selective for just the cancer cells. In other in vitro research, the dibutyl phthalate constituent of Galium aparine is credited for strongest dose and time dependent activity against a leukemia cell line (K562). Years ago, our sticky weed might actually have been doing something in the treatment of certain cancers.
There’s an experiment showing liver restorative effects of a 3 herb formula containing Galium aparine, Berberis lycium and Pistacia integerrima after poisoning with carbon tetrachloride. Interestingly, though our weed, and so many others exhibit diuretic effects, the responsible compound has not been implicated. The caffeine content is not sufficient to be responsible for the observed effects. An interesting constituent, which we are keeping an eye on, is asperuloside, which might account for the traditional weight loss usage. This compound seems to ameliorate the effects of high fight diet in upsetting gastrointestinal flora. This might in turn affect insulin resistance, absorption of nutrients, fat and carbohydrate metabolism.
Juice chopped up cleavers with a minimum amount of water, in a blender, strain out the chunks and put the liquid in ice trays, for future use topically or internally. We have a tincture press at weedom to accomplish this job, which bypasses the otherwise necessary chopping step. Cleaver juice (succus) can be applied to skin irritations such as bug bites, chicken pox, eczema, psoriasis. This juice can be consumed internally in 1-2 tablespoon quantities as a nutritive, alterative, diuretic. The pulverized plant can also be directly applied as a poultice to wounds to stimulate healing. The dried plant can be tinctured using lower strength ethanol, 25-40 percent. Many major useful constituents are water soluble. A tea or strong infusion in warm, but not boiling water, can be made using the fresh or dried plant. Fresh is best! For food, cook young plants, before the pods are forming, and preferably before the flowers form. You can see that young plants have shorter hooks and hairs, and you can determine food usage based upon your tolerance for the spines, which are more prominent in older plants. The seeds have been roasted as a coffee substitute, but weedom has chicory around, and so far we have been too lazy to collect those tiny little pods. However, if we don’t have access to coffee, we could be driven to any amount of work for a bit of caffeine. The ripe pods (the brown ones) can be roasted lightly in a pan, ground up in your coffee grinder and extracted with hot water. It will smell somewhat like coffee, but won’t truly match the taste. Mixing the seeds with roasted chicory might do the trick.
Run through the weeds, and see what sticks!! Right now in zone 6, it’ll most likely be cleavers. :-)
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Where We Dig
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I love cleavers and have used the tender, early-spring sprigs in pesto and plunked down in a pitcher of water kept in the fridge. I also dry some bunches to have the rest of the year in tea (not boiled).
Your knowledge never ceases to amaze!