The Bedstraw Family: Rogues or Helpers?
...Medicine and Folklore... with Maggie Chaplin
straining milk and that an extract of the plant acted as a kind of vegetable rennet to curdle milk to make cheese. There are records to indicate that Ancient Greek shepherds used it in this way. Another plant in the same family was also at one time involved in cheese making. The golden-flowered lady’s bedstraw not only curdled the milk but also imparted a yellow colour to the cheese. As its name suggests, lady’s bedstraw
• Cleavers W
hether you were a lace maker or a dairymaid, wanted to perfume
your boudoir, dye some wool or treat a skin condition, there was a bedstraw for you. Today the plant of the bedstraw family that we most commonly encounter is cleavers (also called goose grass, sticky willie and a host of other names that relate to its annoying habit of attaching itself to anything it comes in contact with). It rates high on the nuisance scale for gardeners. It sneaks up through your plants and is often multi-branched and several feet long before you spot it. The leggy stalk, the pointed leaves and the hundreds of paired round seeds it produces are all covered in tiny backward pointing bristles by which it clings to other plants. The little white flowers are barely noticeable. Cleavers was once considered useful and large quantities of its seeds have been found during excavations of Neolithic settlements. It is thought that the fibrous, hairy stems were used as a sieve for
was used primarily as a strewing herb because of its honey fragrance, and legend has it that it was used to line Baby Jesus’ manger. It was also said to ward off evil spells. Sweet woodruff, a related plant that flowers earlier in the year than cleavers and lady’s bedstraw was especially valued for its fragrance when dried. What did lace makers and bedstraw have
to do with each other? Those pestiferous little seed balls that stick to your clothing and tangle your pet’s fur were apparently just the thing for making heads for pins to stop them slipping through the lace. And if you wanted to dye your lace or more
probably some wool, then you might go out and dig up the root of a related plant, the hedge bedstraw to use. If you were just feeling frivolous you could use it to colour Easter eggs red instead. Several medicinal properties were claimed for members of the bedstraw family and the 16th century herbalist William Coles recommended cleavers as a spring vegetable to ‘cleanse the blood’. He also advocated its use (pounded with swine grease!) as a dressing for wounds, scabs and sores. A more modern (and pleasant!) remedy, for aching legs or sore feet, is to simmer a handful of lady’s bedstraw flowers in a pint of water, strain and add it to your bath or footbath. If you follow that by sipping an infusion of cleavers, which is claimed to be an effective sleep aid, just before bedtime then you have made your own ‘pamper package’. That may just give you the strength next day to go into the garden and pull out all the cleavers you don’t want!
• Below - ladyʼs bedstraw n
August 2011
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