Galium aparine

The ortelano's love, tongue whipper or limpet (Galium aparine) It is an annual herb of the Rubiaceae family, native to Europe and North America. All parts of the plant are covered in small spurs, which make it stick like Velcro to clothing or body hair. The infusion of its ground seeds is taken as a substitute for coffee, with which it is remotely related.

Description

G. aparine is an annual herb, up to 2 m in stem length. This is a climber, quadrangular in section, branched from the base, with hedgey nodes, angular, covered with spurs. The leaves form whorls of 6 to 8 units; they are mononervated, linear to lanceolate or spatulate, up to 1 cm long, with a hyaline apex, mucronate. They have retroverted acules on the margins. The flowers are hermaphrodite, white or light green, without a calyx, tetramerous, with the petals welded at the base, with four stamens; they form axillary cymes of few flowers. The fruit is a globose schizocarp, covered with uncinate hairs with a tuberculate base. It blooms in early spring.

Growth, habitat and distribution

G. aparine is native to Europe and North America. It grows wild in pastures, plowed fields, and gardens; It is one of the most frequent weeds that affect the cereal, due to the similarity of its seeds with those of these.

It is a therophyte, that is, it completes all its development during the favorable season; dies when the cold approaches. The spurs of the fruits favor dispersal by zoochory.

Illustration

Follage

Detail

History

Plant known since Antiquity, of which Dioscorides says: "Its flower applied in the form of a poultice, heals fire burns and staunches effusions of blood". Its root stokes genital virtue". Andrés Laguna adds: "restains all flow of blood". It is also said that its beautiful yellow flowers were used in ancient times to bleach hair, as well as to curdle milk to make cheeses that take on a beautiful yellow color. The name of the genus seems to derive from the latter (from gala = milk).

Taxonomy

Galium aparine was described by Carlos Linnaeus and published in Species Plantarum 1: 108, in the year 1753.

Cytology

Chromosome number of Galium aparine (Fam. Rubiaceae) and infraspecific taxa: 2n=66. 2n=64. 2n=64, 66.

Etymology

Galium: generic name derived from the Greek word gala which means "milk", alluding to the fact that some species were used to curdle milk.

aparine: epithet meaning "like the genus Aparine (now a synonym of Galium).

Sinonimia

• Aparine vulgaris Hill (1770).
• Asperula aparine (L.) Besser (1809), nom. illeg.
• Asterophyllum aparine (L.) Schimp. & Spenn. in F.C.L.Spenner (1829).
• Asperula aparine var. aparine (L.) Nyman (1879), nom. inval.
• Galion aparinum (L.) St.-Lag. (1880).
• Blonde aparine (L.) Baill. (1880).
• Galium adhaerens Gilib. (1782)
• Galium asperum Honck. (1782), nom. illeg.
• Galium uliginosum Thunb. (1784), nom. illeg.
• Aparine hispida Moench (1794).
• Galium lappaceum Salisb. (1796).
• Galium hispidum Willd. (1809).
• Galium scaberrimum Vahl ex Hornem. (1813).
• Galium uncinatum Gray (1821).
• Galium agress Wallr. (1822).
• Galium intermedium Mérat (1831), nom. illeg.
• Galium aparine var. minor Hook. (1833).
• Galium pauciflorum Bunge (1833), nom. illeg.
• Galium horridum Eckl. & Zeyh. (1837), nom. illeg.
• Galium aparine var. subglabrum Peterm. (1838).
• Galium spurium var. echinospermum Desp. (1838).
• Crucianella purpurea Wulff ex Steud. (1840).
• Galium segetum K.Koch (1843).
• Galium chilense Hook.f. (1846).
• Galium aparine var. microphyllum Clos in C.Gay (1848).
• Galium chonosense Clos in C.Gay (1848)
• Galium pseudoaparine Griseb. (1854).
• Galium parviflorum Maxim. (1859), nom. illeg.
• Galium tenerrimum Schur (1866).
• Galium aparine var. fructibushispidis Franch. (1883).
• Galium aparine var. intermedium (Mérat) Bonnet (1883).
• Galium borbonicum var. makianum Cordem. (1895).
• Galium aparine var. pseudoaparine (Griseb.) Speg. (1897).
• Galium aparine var. echinospermum (Wallr.) T.Durand in É.A.J.De Wildeman & T.A.Durand (1899).
• Galium australe Reiche (1900), nom. superfl.
• Galium larecajense Wernham (1912).
• Galium spurium var. echinospermum (Wallr.) Hayek (1912).
• Galium charoides Rusby (1934).
• Galium oliganthum Nakai " Kitag. (1934).
• Galium aparine f. intermedium (Mérat) R.J.Moore (1975).
• Galium aparine var. agreste P.D.Sell (2006).
• Galium aparine subsp. agreste P.D.Sell (2006).

Common name

• Gingerbread, dogging, dogging, dogging, dogging
• cat tongue (Chile)