Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Cleavers vs Sweet Woodruff

I'm having a little fun with #4 and a weed call Cleavers (Galium aparine). Also known as Goosegrass, Sticky Weed, Catchweed, Sticky Willow (Sticky Willy), amongst a few others. This weed can grow up to 3' tall. The stem and leaves have very tiny hooks that can make them stick to many things, but are much easier to remove from your clothes than burs.
They resemble the garden ground cover called Sweet Woodruff, which I do have growing in a couple of spots.



She later got a huge kick out of sticking it onto Papa's shirt tail. 'It works, Meema!'



Minuscule flowers of Cleavers. Notice the tiny, hair-like hooks on the leaves.



Squarish stem of Cleavers.



Cleavers on the left, Sweet Woodruff on the right. They are very similar.



Larger flowers of Sweet Woodruff.



Smoother leaves, and tighter growing habit of Sweet Woodruff.




































2 comments:

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  2. There's a "faker" type of weed that has a similar habit, but has irregular number of leaves at the node as well as a clam type seed packet there as well. It's flowers are blue, instead of white like cleavers. Do you know the name of "faker" weed?

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