Cleavers (Gallium aparine) interests me greatly. . Until about 4 years ago, I couldn’t find it around us in Gawler but for the last couple, it’s been popping up everywhere! It can dominate the area around it, climbing and scrambling to cover other plants. It’s quite common in the foothills, especially around Hale Conservation Park where in season, you can fund it around the carpark.
The whole plant is covered by tiny hairs that make it a kind of living Velcro. One of the common names is Sticky Willie. I can understand the first part 😉
The leaves help it to cling to plants (‘cleave’ doesn’t just mean ‘to cut’, it can also mean ‘to stick to’). That helps it to climb upwards and its flexible stems give a great deal of agility.
Why do I love it?
Cleavers is quite nutritious and tasty when cooked and it is a premiere lymphatic tonic. It helps move lymph in our system.
Lymph carries the wastes from our cells, from the tissues to the portal vein and from there to the liver for metabolism, breakdown and excretion. Its an excellent addition to Halloween night excess. Lymph is also chock full of antibodies and immune cells.
Lymph doesn’t get pumped around us in the way that blood does and relies on bodily movement to get it around. A build up of lymph in an affected or damaged area contributes greatly to the swelling and pain. We’ve all experienced this (ok, maybe one or two haven’t) when we gel ‘swollen glands’ during a sore throat or other infection. The main collection points are in the armpits and just above the pelvis.
Taking Cleavers as a tea, or infusion helps greatly with systemic problems such as infections or swollen glands and crushing and applying it to inflamed areas helps reduce redness and swelling.
Other key lymph movers are Calendula (which is out in abundance now) and Chickweed, which is starting to finish its season now that the warmth is here.
The pics will help you identify it but by far the best way to ID it it to press the leaves against whatever you’re wearing. It’ll stick well to most fabrics. Don’t try to eat a raw leaf though, they can stick in the back of your throat! Now how did I find that out?
An interesting titbit is that Cleavers is in the same family as Coffee, Rubiaceae and the seeds can be collected, roasted and ground as a reasonable coffee substitute without but without that wonderful caffeine hit.
Harvesting and use –
Harvest Cleavers at any time the plant is present in your world. I wait until the seeds are nice and big, then take the while lot.
Cleavers dries well and unlike its Spring companion, Chickweed, can be used dried. You can use Chickweed dries bit it loses much of its potency, Cleavers keeps it.
Other herb pages on Ligaya Garden
We cover a lot of ground on many herb related topics here on our website. There are whole pages devoted to different topics as well as frequent posts. Some of the links are –
