CLEAVERS (Galium aparine)
Blackwood Biosecurity Inc. is concerned about increasing infestations of the invasive weed, Cleavers (Galium aparine), in the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire and needs your help.
We are mapping Cleavers along roadsides and in reserves, but we can’t reach everywhere and ask that you look for it on your property and elsewhere and let us know where you see it.
Cleavers is an annual scrambling herb which dies down in summer and germinates again with winter rains. It is highly invasive, with potential to infest large areas of the southwest, causing environmental and economic damage. It has small sticky hooks along its stems, at the tip and along the edges of leaves and even on its fruit, which readily catch on animals, birds, clothing and machinery. It often likes damp, partly shaded areas.
About Cleavers
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Cleavers is a highly invasive declared weed with potential to infest large areas of the southwest, causing environmental and economic damage. It is a robust annual sprawling herb with small sticky hooks along its stems, at the tip and along the edges of leaves and even on its fruit, which readily catch on animals, birds, clothing and machinery…..prompting common names such as stickywilly, goosegrass, catchweed bedstraw, robin-run-over-the-hedge, catchweed or scratch grass.
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Sticky, hooked cleavers seeds are dispersed by wind, water and by attaching themselves to people, machinery and animals.
Cleavers is regarded as a threat to agriculture and the natural environment and is highly competitive, smothering other vegetation.
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Cleavers dies down over summer but germinating in autumn after the summer rains, quickly sending up stems which grow to around 2 metres. It prefers acid to neutral soils, but may well grow on other soil types under less favourable conditions.
DID YOU
KNOW?
Cleavers seed several times a year and survive for up to 3 years in the soil.