Galium aparine L.
cleavers
Prostrate or scrambling annual; stems to 2 m long when through other vegetation, rather stout, branched, densely clothed in retrorse, hooked, scabrid hairs on the sharply acute angles. Lvs and stipules in whorls of 5-8, sessile, 10-60 × 2-8 mm (sometimes smaller on exposed prostrate shoots), linear-oblanceolate or narrow-elliptic, often spathulate or obovate on exposed lateral shoots; margins flat or nearly so, densely clothed in retrorse, hooked, scabrid hairs; midrib below and surface generally above ± scabrid; apex shortly awned. Fls (1)-2-(6), in axillary divaricating cymes; peduncles usually > pedicels; whorl of bracts at base of pedicels leaflike and scabrid. Corolla 1-2 mm diam., white or whitish; lobes ovate, ± mucronate. Mericarps 2.5-4 mm diam. (excluding bristles), globose or subglobose (often 1 of the pair smaller or abortive), densely furnished with hooked bristles.
N.; S.; St.; Ch.: very common.
Temperate Eurasia 1870
Commonest amongst shrubs and tall herbs around cultivated areas, in waste places, forest margins, clearings and scrub, sometimes on newly exposed surfaces, rough pastures and cliff faces.
FL Jul-Mar.
In exposed habitats the stems are short with lvs and stipules often small, broad and tending to form terminal rosettes. Two vars of the closely related G. spurium L. have been recorded for N.Z. (Allan 1940), but there are no supporting specimens. Almost certainly there was some confusion with G. aparine. G. spurium is mainly distinguished by the greenish yellow corollas and the smaller, often smooth mericarps.
