752 Identification and Eradication of Weeds, [dec, 



support, and by sheer weight drags it down, rendering har- 

 vesting operations difficult. Brenchley found it frequent 

 alike on clays, chalk soils, and sands and light loams, while 

 it was absent or very rare in seed-crops. Holdich wrote* 

 that cleavers is "principally addicted to deep, loose soils, 

 mellow, marshy land, and the drier sorts of fen land. All 

 lightish loams may have harifT, but it abhors clay, and fen 

 soils lying damp and low are not friendly to it, though it be 

 one of the very worst weeds where it abounds. The farmers 

 of clay lands on the verge of the fens often buy their seed 

 wheat of the fen farmers; and they heed not the seeds of 

 harifT for, if they grow, they come to no length, and are 

 never seen at harvest." 



Cleavers is frequently chopped up and given as a food to 

 poultry ; Hulme saysf that "the whole plant gives a decoction 

 equal to tea " ; and William Pitt, Harz, and Anne Pratt state 

 that the seeds (fruits) form a substitute for coffee ; while Harz 

 adds that when roughly ground they can with advantage be 

 used as a cattle food. J Anne Pratt also says of this weed : 

 " Dioscorides tells that it was used in his time as a kind of 

 filter for straining milk, and Linnaeus says it is commonly 

 so used in Sweden. In our own country places it is occa- 

 sionally thus employed, when a sieve is not at hand, and it 

 answers the purpose exceedingly well, by the roughness of 

 its leaves and stalks." Ewart says § that the weed is eaten 

 by stock when hungry, but, though not poisonous, it is apt 

 to cause internal inflammation, and has a certain diuretic 

 action. 



Fruits. — As in the case of Sherardia arvensis the seed of 

 Galium Aparine is enclosed in a rough fruit, which is rather 

 large, roundish, but somewhat compressed from above to the 

 scar beneath, hard, grey-green to purplish in colour when 

 ripe, and very rough, owing to numerous hooks by means of 

 which it clings to the clothes of man or the hair and fur of 

 animals, so ensuring distribution (Fig. 3, a). The fruits are 



* "An Essay on the Weeds of Agriculture," Benjamin Holdich. Edited by 

 G. Sinclair, 3rd edition, 1825. 



t Familiar Wild Flowers, F. E. Hulme, Vol. v., p. 103. 

 % Landwirtschaftliche Samenkunde, C. D. Harz, 1885. 



§ Weeds, Poison Plants, and Naturalised Aliens of Victoria, A. J. Ewart, 1909- 

 P- 31- 



