Galium verum (
Lady's Bedstraw or
Yellow Bedstraw) is a herbaceous
perennial plantA perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants...
of the family
RubiaceaeRubiaceae is a family of flowering plants, variously called the madder family, bedstraw family or coffee family. Other common plants included here are gardenia, cinchona, sweet woodruff, partridgeberry, gambier, ixora, and noni...
, native to
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...
. It is a low scrambling plant, with the stems growing to 60-120 cm long, frequently rooting where they touch the ground. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are 1-3 cm long and 2 mm broad, shiny dark green, hairy underneath, borne in whorls of 8-12. The
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s are 2-3 mm in diameter, yellow, and produced in dense clusters.
It is related to the plant Cleavers, or Sticky Willy (Gallium Aparine).
In the past the dried plants were used to stuff mattresses, as the
coumarinCoumarin is a chemical compound found in many plants, notably in high concentration in the tonka bean , vanilla grass , woodruff , mullein , and sweet grass...
scent of the plants acts as a
fleaFlea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects whose mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood....
killer.
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Galium verum (
Lady's Bedstraw or
Yellow Bedstraw) is a herbaceous
perennial plantA perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants...
of the family
RubiaceaeRubiaceae is a family of flowering plants, variously called the madder family, bedstraw family or coffee family. Other common plants included here are gardenia, cinchona, sweet woodruff, partridgeberry, gambier, ixora, and noni...
, native to
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...
. It is a low scrambling plant, with the stems growing to 60-120 cm long, frequently rooting where they touch the ground. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are 1-3 cm long and 2 mm broad, shiny dark green, hairy underneath, borne in whorls of 8-12. The
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s are 2-3 mm in diameter, yellow, and produced in dense clusters.
It is related to the plant Cleavers, or Sticky Willy (Gallium Aparine).
Uses
In the past the dried plants were used to stuff mattresses, as the
coumarinCoumarin is a chemical compound found in many plants, notably in high concentration in the tonka bean , vanilla grass , woodruff , mullein , and sweet grass...
scent of the plants acts as a
fleaFlea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects whose mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood....
killer. The flowers were also used to coagulate
milkMilk is an opaque white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It provides the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. The early lactation milk is known as colostrum, and carries the mother's antibodies to the baby. It can reduce...
in
cheeseCheese is a food consisting of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. It is produced by coagulation of the milk protein casein. Typically, the milk is acidified and addition of the enzyme rennet causes coagulation. The solids are separated and pressed into...
manufacture and, in
GloucestershireGloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, to colour the cheese Double Gloucester.
The plant is also used to make red
madderRubia is a genus of the madder family Rubiaceae, which contains about 60 species of perennial scrambling or climbing herbs and sub-shrubs native to the Old World, Africa, temperate Asia and America...
-like and yellow dyes.
In
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, the plant (known locally as
gul snerre) is traditionally used to infuse spirits, making the uniquely Danish drink
bjæsk.
Mythology
FriggFrigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power...
was the goddess of married women, in
Norse mythologyNorse, North Germanic, or Scandinavian mythology comprises the myths of North Germanic pre-Christian religion.Most of the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled in medieval Iceland in Old Norse, notably as the Edda....
. She helped women give birth to children, and as Scandinavians used the plant Lady's Bedstraw (
Galium verum) as a sedative, they called it
Frigg's grass.