Galium aparine
Origin: Eurasia, North Africa, and North America
Improvement status: Wild
Seeds per packet: ~30
Germination tested 11/2025: 93%
Life cycle: Annual
It's often noted that the plants with the most names are the most useful, and if that be so than cleavers must be one of the most useful plants on the planet. In English alone, it has perhaps dozens of names, including cleavers, bedsraw, sweetheart, hitchhikers, clivers, goosegrass, catchweed, coachweed, 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!
Cleavers is a weedy annual in the coffee family (it even contains some caffiene!) long considered native to Afroeurasia, from the Canary Islands and Britain across North Africa, Europe, and Asia, all the way to Japan, but it is also now widely considered native to North America as well. Given its cosmopolitan nature, it's no surprise the plant has naturalized itself in nearly every other temperate part of the world, including South America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. While most ignore or deride it as a weed, those who appreciate this plant have a great many reasons to:
1) It's edible. The leaves and stems can be cooked as a leaf vegetable, ideally gathered before the fruits harden. It's edible raw, though not so pleasant unless liquified in a food processer for use in pesto, or something like that. To the extent that it's eaten, it's usually cooked. The flavor is usually somewhat bitter, but it is least bitter in spring.
2) The fruit, when dried and roasted, make a passable coffee substitute — and unlike most such drinks, this one actually contains caffeine.
3) The roots of cleavers can be made into a permanent red dye.
4) A tea from the dried leaves is used for a great many medicinal purposes, including as a diuretic, lymphatic supporter, immune stimulant, astringent, demulcent, general tonic, and anti-inflammatory. (People on blood thinning medication, or who are pregnant, nursing, or dealing with kidney or liver issues, should avoid this plant!)
5) A poultice — cold or warm compress made from the mashed up plant — is used topically for skin conditions like psoriasis, eczema, acne, burns, wounds, and venomous stings or bites.
6) Studies have even found promising anti-cancer properties in cleavers, with the growth of two particular types of tumor cells being inhibited by cleavers extract. It has also been shown to increase lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell important for general immunity and reducing cancer cells.
7) Using cleavers as a vegetable in the diet is said to help with weight loss.
8) People from ancient Greece to modern Sweden have used the barbed stems of cleavers, roughly laid out in a web, as a sieve used to strain milk!
9) Dried stems, matted together, were long used to stuff mattresses and pillows, since the barbed hairs on the plant cause the stems to stick together and not move around, reducing the need for fluffing and holding a uniform shape and thickness.
10) The dried stems make an excellent tinder for starting fires.
11) The fresh plant can be rubbed on the hands to remove pitch, resin, or tar.
and,
12) With its sticky barbs, the inspiration for so many of its names, it can easily be made to stick to clothing, hair, and sometimes skin, so the plant has been the source of countless hours of fun and games for children and adults alike around the world.
It may be growing in your garden or on your farm already, but if it's not, we hope we've provided more than enough reason to give it a try!
GROWING TIPS: Very easy to grow. Simply sow seeds in moist, rich soil, in partial shade or sun, in early spring or late fall. Seeds need light to germinate, so don't bury them. Keep moist. Due to its vigorous, spreading nature, be thoughtful about where you plant it — it's not necessarily something you want in your vegetable garden, but it's great for an otherwise weedy patch by the edge of some woods, or along a fenceline, or compost heap, or drainage ditch.
NOTE: The photo of cleavers in the forest is comes from Płonia Valley near Lubiatowo, NW Poland, was taken by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz and is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. All others are public domain images.
