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Plants & Fungi
Galium aparine
EOL Text
Cleavers is the most common Galium sp. (Bedstraw) in Illinois. Other common names for Galium aparine include Goosegrass and Annual Bedstraw. It is a rather weedy plant with insignificant flowers. Cleavers has up to 8 leaves per whorl, while other Bedstraws usually have only 4 or 6 leaves per whorl. The carpels, leaves, and stems of Cleavers have an abundance of stiff hairs that can cling readily to clothing, fur, or adjacent vegetation; this distinguishes it from about one-half of the other Bedstraws, which have smooth to slightly rough carpels and foliage. Another species with white flowers, Galium mollugo (Hedge Bedstraw), has whorls of 6-8 leaves like Cleavers. However, Hedge Bedstraw has smooth carpels and foliage and it produces a large terminal inflorescence with an abundance of flowers. In the past, various Bedstraws were used to curdle milk in the production of cheese because the foliage is somewhat acidic.
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Rights holder/Author | Copyright © 2002-2014 by Dr. John Hilty |
Source | http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/cleavers.htm |
Stickywilly is widely distributed in North America. It occurs in every U.S. state except Hawaii [153]. Stickywilly is present in parts of northern Mexico and in most Canadian provinces [90,165]. The nativity of stickywilly is debated. While most accept this species as native, some consider it nonnative [163,171]. Still others suggest that stickywilly is a native, but that subsequent introductions have occurred as well [90]. In a literature review, it is suggested stickywilly arrived in the fur of animals crossing the Bering Strait into North America [28]. While debate regarding the nativity of stickywilly continues, it is in all likelihood native and is considered native in most literature [25,44,58,143]. For more discussion on the nativity of stickywilly see [62,90].
A distributional map of stickywilly is accessible through Plants database.
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This species can be found in the following regions of the western United States (according to the Bureau of Land Management classification of Physiographic Regions of the western United States):
BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS [16]:
1 Northern Pacific Border
2 Cascade Mountains
3 Southern Pacific Border
4 Sierra Mountains
5 Columbia Plateau
6 Upper Basin and Range
7 Lower Basin and Range
8 Northern Rocky Mountains
9 Middle Rocky Mountains
10 Wyoming Basin
11 Southern Rocky Mountains
12 Colorado Plateau
13 Rocky Mountain Piedmont
14 Great Plains
15 Black Hills Uplift
16 Upper Missouri Basin and Broken Lands
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This species is known to occur in association with the following plant community types (as classified by Küchler 1964):
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KUCHLER [79] PLANT ASSOCIATIONS:
K001 Spruce-cedar-hemlock forest
K002 Cedar-hemlock-Douglas-fir forest
K003 Silver fir-Douglas-fir forest
K004 Fir-hemlock forest
K005 Mixed conifer forest
K006 Redwood forest
K007 Red fir forest
K008 Lodgepole pine-subalpine forest
K010 Ponderosa shrub forest
K011 Western ponderosa forest
K012 Douglas-fir forest
K013 Cedar-hemlock-pine forest
K014 Grand fir-Douglas-fir forest
K015 Western spruce-fir forest
K016 Eastern ponderosa forest
K017 Black Hills pine forest
K018 Pine-Douglas-fir forest
K019 Arizona pine forest
K020 Spruce-fir-Douglas-fir forest
K021 Southwestern spruce-fir forest
K023 Juniper-pinyon woodland
K024 Juniper steppe woodland
K025 Alder-ash forest
K026 Oregon oakwoods
K028 Mosaic of K002 and K026
K029 California mixed evergreen forest
K030 California oakwoods
K031 Oak-juniper woodland
K032 Transition between K031 and K037
K033 Chaparral
K034 Montane chaparral
K035 Coastal sagebrush
K036 Mosaic of K030 and K035
K037 Mountain-mahogany-oak scrub
K038 Great Basin sagebrush
K047 Fescue-oatgrass
K048 California steppe
K050 Fescue-wheatgrass
K051 Wheatgrass-bluegrass
K055 Sagebrush steppe
K056 Wheatgrass-needlegrass shrubsteppe
K063 Foothills prairie
K064 Grama-needlegrass-wheatgrass
K066 Wheatgrass-needlegrass
K067 Wheatgrass-bluestem-needlegrass
K068 Wheatgrass-grama-buffalo grass
K069 Bluestem-grama prairie
K070 Sandsage-bluestem prairie
K074 Bluestem prairie
K075 Nebraska Sandhills prairie
K081 Oak savanna
K082 Mosaic of K074 and K100
K083 Cedar glades
K084 Cross Timbers
K089 Black Belt
K093 Great Lakes spruce-fir forest
K095 Great Lakes pine forest
K096 Northeastern spruce-fir forest
K097 Southeastern spruce-fir forest
K098 Northern floodplain forest
K099 Maple-basswood forest
K100 Oak-hickory forest
K101 Elm-ash forest
K102 Beech-maple forest
K103 Mixed mesophytic forest
K104 Appalachian oak forest
K106 Northern hardwoods
K107 Northern hardwoods-fir forest
K108 Northern hardwoods-spruce forest
K109 Transition between K104 and K106
K110 Northeastern oak-pine forest
K111 Oak-hickory-pine
K112 Southern mixed forest
K113 Southern floodplain forest
Stickney and Campbell [138] tentatively classified stickywilly as a nonsurvivor that colonizes burned sites from on-site seed. Due to a limited number of fire effect observations for this species, researchers were tentative in their description of stickywilly's postfire response.
Eastern desert ? and Sinai?
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Rights holder/Author | Bibliotheca Alexandrina, BA Cultnat, Bibliotheca Alexandrina - EOL Ar |
Source | http://lifedesk.bibalex.org/ba/pages/3005 |
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This species is known to occur in the following ecosystem types (as named by the U.S. Forest Service in their Forest and Range Ecosystem [FRES] Type classification):
ECOSYSTEMS [40]:
FRES10 White-red-jack pine
FRES11 Spruce-fir
FRES13 Loblolly-shortleaf pine
FRES14 Oak-pine
FRES15 Oak-hickory
FRES16 Oak-gum-cypress
FRES17 Elm-ash-cottonwood
FRES18 Maple-beech-birch
FRES19 Aspen-birch
FRES20 Douglas-fir
FRES21 Ponderosa pine
FRES22 Western white pine
FRES23 Fir-spruce
FRES24 Hemlock-Sitka spruce
FRES25 Larch
FRES26 Lodgepole pine
FRES27 Redwood
FRES28 Western hardwoods
FRES29 Sagebrush
FRES34 Chaparral-mountain shrub
FRES35 Pinyon-juniper
FRES36 Mountain grasslands
FRES37 Mountain meadows
FRES38 Plains grasslands
FRES39 Prairie
FRES42 Annual grasslands
Fire kills stickywilly when it is actively growing [138]. Fall germinating seedlings were killed by both early winter and spring fires in tallgrass prairie wetlands of northeastern Kansas [67]. Fires late in the growing season may only affect stored seed as stickywilly senesces following fruiting [103].
Europe, north Africa, Sinai, east Mediterranean region, central Asia.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Bibliotheca Alexandrina, BA Cultnat, Bibliotheca Alexandrina - EOL Ar |
Source | http://lifedesk.bibalex.org/ba/pages/3005 |