Galium aparine
Among the first species to come up and flower in our yard each year is Galium aparine. I’ve always known it by the common name cleavers, a reference to the many small hairs with tiny hooks on them that cause the plant to cling to anything that touches them. According to Wikipedia, that characteristic has given rise to a lot of other vernacular names, among them hitchhikers, catchweed, stickyweed, sticky bob, stickybud, stickyback, sticky molly, sticky willy, sticky willow, stickyjack, stickeljack, grip grass, sticky grass, whippysticks, and velcro plant.
For whatever reason, this picture from March 2nd marks the plant’s first appearance in Portraits of Wildflowers. It’s the second new species to appear here this month, after bumelia, and a third is in the pipeline.
To give you a sense of scale for cleavers flowers, let me add that each one measures not even a quarter of an inch (6mm) across, so a casual passerby might not even notice them. Beneath each flower a little fruit develops with hairs on it designed to catch on fur or feathers and get transported to new abodes.
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Maximum transparency
I don’t know about you, but I take the stance that a government should reveal to its citizens as much as possible of what it does and the information it has. That means almost everything, the few exceptions being things like grand jury testimony, spycraft, people’s personal records, and military operations.
And yet it’s an unhappy fact of life that governments often hide actions and information that ought to be public. One example is the American government after the riot at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. In the two years since then, the government has refused to release thousands of hours of videos showing what actually went on inside the Capitol that day. I claim that we the people have a right to know.
I’m pleased to find out from a March 2nd article by Rasmussen Reports that a poll on that very question shows a strong majority of Americans feeling the same way I do:
Voters overwhelmingly support releasing all videos of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, and a majority think it’s likely that government agents helped provoke the riot.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 80% of Likely U.S. Voters believe it is important that the public be able to view all the videos of the Capitol riot, including 58% who think it’s Very Important. Only 17% don’t think it’s important for the public to be able to see all the riot videos. (To see survey question wording, click here.) ….
Eighty-six percent (86%) of Republicans, 78% of Democrats, and 75% of voters not affiliated with either major party believe it is important that the public be able to view all the videos of the Capitol riot….
Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters believe it is likely that undercover government agents helped provoke the Capitol riot, including 39% who think it’s Very Likely. Thirty percent (30%) don’t think it’s likely undercover agents helped provoke the riot, including 18% who say it is Not At All Likely….
The survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on February 26-28, 2023 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Here’s how to interpret that last sentence. Because it’s not feasible to interview everyone in a large population, pollsters take a representative random sample of the population. The expectation is that the results of the sample will be close to the results you’d get if you could interview everyone in the overall population. In this case, 95% of samples taken under the same conditions as the ones that were used will produce results no more than 3 percentage points above or below the true value in the overall population; 5% of the time, even allowing a 3-percentage point margin of error, the results coming from the sample will not capture the true value in the overall population.
Notice also that the Rasmussen article lets you see the exact wording of the questions. That’s important because disreputable pollsters can word questions in ways that influence people and slant their reactions.
You can read the full Rasmussen article for more and more-specific results of the poll.
On March 6th, a few days after I wrote the commentary above, a host on Fox News showed some of the previously secret surveillance videos. The hue and cry from opponents was typical: they complained the videos were cherry-picked to downplay the January 6th riots. Perhaps so, but no more than the ones shown by the January 6th Committee had been cherry-picked to exaggerate aspects of what happened that day and support a one-sided view of the events. At least now there’s some balance. The fair thing would be to make all the videos available so Americans can decide for themselves. We deserve the whole truth, not anyone’s particular narrative.
And there was another revelation. Following the lawlessness that rioters engaged in at the Capitol on January came the lawlessness of prosecutors who refused persistent requests by defendants’ lawyers for all videos that would be exculpatory for their clients. Even without being asked for exculpatory evidence, prosecutors are legally bound to turn all of it over to the defense. Not doing so is unethical and constitutes prosecutorial misconduct.
The requirement of prosecutors to turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defense is known as the Brady Rule, about which you can read more.
© 2023 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
This weed is rampant in my garden along with hairy bittercress and bindweed. All of which I try to remove before they flower.
Heyjude
March 9, 2023 at 5:29 AM
I’ll grant you it has a tendency to take over. Unlike some other plants, it pulls out easily. Photographically, it has its appeal, as any plant does.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 5:35 AM
A friend recently spent a day pulling great mounds of this plant out of her yard. I’ve seen it, but had no name for it, common or otherwise. It’s interesting that her name for the plant is ‘cleaver.’ That’s an interesting word. On the one hand, the plant ‘cleaves’ to anyone who passes by; on the other, it takes a cleaver (or a gas trimmer) to get rid of the stuff.
Now, I know the scientific name, and for once have seen the flowers. I’ve only seen it as a pile of green in the past. I wondered about galium and gallium. Two words, two roots. I found this on a University of Michigan site: “Galium is named after the Greek word for bedstraw, galion. The Greek apairo, which means to “lay hold of” or “seize,” gives the species name aparine, since this species tends to climb and cling to other plants.”
On the other hand, Wikipedia offers this: “Galium… is derived from the Greek word for ‘milk’, because the flowers of Galium verum were used to curdle milk in cheese making.” It’s true that γάλα is Greek for milk, and the plant might have been used to curdle milk, but…
shoreacres
March 9, 2023 at 7:46 AM
I’ve sometimes pulled quantities of cleavers out of our yard. The good thing is that they come out of the ground easily.
As you intimated, at first glance cleave appears to be a contronym (a.k.a. autantonym), a word with opposite meanings, in this case ‘to cling to’ and also ‘to split apart.’ However, we’re actually dealing with two different words that coincidentally ended up identical. As Wikipedia notes: “cleave ‘separate’ is from Old English clēofan, while cleave ‘adhere’ is from Old English clifian, which was pronounced differently.” In contrast, sanction ‘to penalize’ and sanction ‘to give license to’ are the same word.
As for the origin of Galium, we may never know if it really was connected to milk.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 9:44 AM
The flowers are tiny but beautiful. And that’s a pretty fun collection of names it’s picked up. I like “grip grass” the best. I guess you’d want gloves to pull it out, looks pretty prickly?
Robert Parker
March 9, 2023 at 8:24 AM
The clinging hairs are pretty tiny. I don’t recall them ever scratching me, but whatever kind of yard work I do — which is as little as possible — I wear gloves.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 11:27 AM
And yes, “grip grass” has class.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 11:32 AM
I love/hate that plant. Your shot is so up close and personal, that I didn’t at first recognize the plant. Love the list of all the fun and charming common names. I didn’t realize just how many there are!
Tina
March 9, 2023 at 8:46 AM
I don’t remember ever getting in as near to the flowers with a camera as I did last week. That close look paid a visual dividend. As you said, the common names are fun, especially as the only one I’ve ever heard people use in Austin is cleavers. Someone could hold a contest to come up with even more.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 11:31 AM
The small size of a flower causes many people not to see its beauty. As we all know from experience ‘big’ is not necessarily beautiful.
Peter Klopp
March 9, 2023 at 9:49 AM
And you’ve probably heard the adage that big things come in small packages.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 11:33 AM
It has pretty little flowers. I wouldn’t want it sticking to my socks though. 😂
circadianreflections
March 9, 2023 at 1:42 PM
It’s a clingy little thing, no question. It existed long before socks did.
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 2:38 PM
Nice to meet you virtually, Galium aparine. I think I would not find it nice to meet you in real life. Not up close, anyway.
Gallivanta
March 9, 2023 at 7:09 PM
Apparently an actual encounter isn’t far away:
https://www.cropscience.bayer.co.nz/pests/weeds/cleavers
Steve Schwartzman
March 9, 2023 at 10:36 PM
Oh dear! Thanks to the link I now realise that I have met Galium aparine, in my own garden. We are not on friendly terms.
Gallivanta
March 10, 2023 at 8:08 PM
Understandably, in a garden. In the wild you might be on better terms.
Steve Schwartzman
March 12, 2023 at 9:22 AM
Argh! Sticky willow has been a nuisance here for a while. I pull it out but there always seems to be a bit more somewhere – probably because the cats pick up so many of the seeds in their fur! (And it’s a hassle getting them out of a long-haired cat’s fluff, I can tell you!)
Ann Mackay
March 11, 2023 at 10:36 AM
I’ve never had to deal with that, but I’ll take your word for it that it’s a hassle. And now I know someone who knows the plant as sticky willow.
Steve Schwartzman
March 12, 2023 at 9:21 AM
🙂 That’s what we called it as kids up in the north of Scotland. At the same time I heard others – adults probably calling it cleavers. (And I’ve heard it it called cleavers in areas further south in Scotland.)
Ann Mackay
March 13, 2023 at 5:03 AM
There may be a line—at least for people your age—that cleaves Scotland in twain between the name cleavers in the south and the name sticky willow in the north. Linguists call such a boundary line (actually a curve) an isogloss.
Steve Schwartzman
March 13, 2023 at 8:00 AM
I don’t think I’ve noticed this “weed” during my walks.
Khürt Williams
March 12, 2023 at 7:02 AM
The USDA map shows it’s been found in all New Jersey counties except Cumberland and Marine, so you may well still come across it.
Steve Schwartzman
March 12, 2023 at 9:33 AM
Cleavers! It looks so beautiful there in your portrait, sticky, clingy devil that it is. We have a lot of it here.
Lavinia Ross
March 12, 2023 at 12:41 PM
I’m guessing there’s a lot of it everywhere. I like your description of it as the “sticky, clingy devil that it is.”
Steve Schwartzman
March 12, 2023 at 5:01 PM
I know cleavers well .. great shot Steve
Julie@frogpondfarm
March 24, 2023 at 2:25 PM
Thanks. I read that cleavers have become a problem in New Zealand.
Steve Schwartzman
March 24, 2023 at 3:01 PM
[…] I noted in a commentary on March 9, the requirement of prosecutors to turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defense is known as […]
Another dense mixed wildflower group | Portraits of Wildflowers
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