In my garden right now, and in most wild areas surrounding my house, Cleavers are growing tall up fences, sprawling across the ground and getting robust and juicy. Cleavers are a non-native plant that take off when spring begins to whisper through the sunshine. It’s a green plant with long stems and many whorls of leaves along the stems. Its rough surface gives it a velcro quality, it's sticky and loves to hitchhike on your clothes.
The name cleavers hints at one of its primary qualities of being sticky and able to 'cleave’ or cling to fabrics. This quality made it useful for stuffing bed mattresses as was one of its uses. We learn from Dioscorides that the Greek shepherds of his day used the stems of this herb to make a rough sieve, and meanwhile, Linnaeus reported the same use being made of it in Sweden, as a filter to strain milk; the stalks are still used this way in Sweden today. A strong decoction of the root makes a deep red dye, used for fabrics, and would turn the bones red of the birds who ate them.
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