Cleavers, Galium aparine, is also known as Goose grass because geese like to eat it. It flowers in early spring to summer, with the flowers occurring in most of the leaf nodes. Cleavers has a long history of use in alternative medicine and is still used widely by modern herbalists.
Cleavers is indigenous to Britain and North-western Europe and has a history of traditional use in Wales. The Welsh know cleavers as ‘cynghafen’ and it was considered by the Physicians of Myddfai as one of the most important of indigenous herbs.