Galium verum


Galium verum is a herbaceous perennial plant of the family Rubiaceae. It is widespread across most of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia from Palestine, Lebanon and Turkey to Japan and Kamchatka. It is naturalized in Tasmania, New Zealand, Canada, and the northern half of the United States. It is considered a noxious weed in some places.
Galium verum is a low scrambling plant, with the stems growing to long, frequently rooting where they touch the ground. The leaves are long and broad, shiny dark green, hairy underneath, borne in whorls of 8–12. The flowers are in diameter, yellow, and produced in dense clusters. This species is sometimes confused with Galium odoratum, a species with traditional culinary uses.

Uses

In medieval Europe, the dried plants were used to stuff mattresses, as the coumarin scent of the plants acts as a flea repellant. The flowers were also used to coagulate milk in cheese manufacture and, in Gloucestershire, to colour the cheese double Gloucester.
The plant is also used to make red madder-like and yellow dyes.
In Denmark, the plant is traditionally used to infuse spirits, making the uniquely Danish drink .

Mythology

was the goddess of married women, in Norse mythology. She helped women give birth to children, and as Scandinavians used the plant lady's bedstraw as a sedative, they called it Frigg's grass.
In Romanian folklore, it is called sânziana and it is linked to the Sânziene fairies and their festival on June 24.
In Gaelic mythology, the hero Cú Chulainn, who suffered fits of rage during battle, would take a tea of this plant to calm his frenzy. The plant is known as lus chneas Chù-Chulainn 'the herb of Cú Chulainn's skin' in Scottish Gaelic, and in the 14th/15th centuries it occurred with the Irish name Bolad cneise con Culainn ‘the smell of Cú Chulainn’s skin’.

Subspecies

Many varietal and subspecific names have been proposed, but only four are currently recognized: