Galium aparine
species of plant
Galium aparine, with common names including cleavers, clivers, catchweed, robin-run-the-hedge, goosegrass, and sticky willy, is an annual, herbaceous plant of the family Rubiaceae.
Names
Galium aparine is known by a variety of common names in English. They include sweetheart, hitchhikers, cleavers, clivers, bedstraw, (small) goosegrass, catchweed, stickyweed, sticky bob, stickybud, stickyback, sticky molly, robin-run-the-hedge, sticky willy, sticky willow, stickyjack, stickeljack, grip grass, sticky grass, bobby buttons, whippysticks, and velcro plant.
Galium is Dioscorides' name for the plant. It is derived from the Greek word for milk, because the flowers of Galium verum were used to curdle milk in cheese making. Aparine is a name used by Theophrastus. It means 'clinging' or 'seizing', and is derived from the Greek απαίρω apairo 'lay hold of, seize', itself coming from από 'from' + αίρω 'pull to lift'.
Description
Cleavers are annuals with creeping straggling stems that branch and grow along the ground and over other plants. They attach themselves by the small hooked hairs that grow on the stems and leaves. The stems can reach up to 1.2 metres (4 ft) tall, and are angular or square shaped.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Galium aparine” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q161581. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Galium aparine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.