Wild Flowers Of Strathclyde Park
  
 

Cleavers
Galium aparine
of the Bedstraw family
an annual
50 -10 cm high
blooms May - September
likes cultivated and waste places, hedgerows, ditches
can be seen extensively around the Park. This is beside the Visitor Centre

   
The proper name and local name for this plant is "sticky willy" derived from it's ability to cling or "cleave" to clothing. Another common name it has is "goosegrass" since it is a favourite food of geese.
Cleavers has medicinal properties. It is a relative of coffee and roasted cleavers seeds were once used to make a coffee-like drink. The young shoots of the plant can be used as an ingredient in soup.