Read here about Lady’s Bedstraw, Galium verum, its medicinal properties, other uses and folklore.
Also known as Yellow Bedstraw, this native wildflower can be found throughout the UK.
The frothy, yellow flowers are in themselves tiny, easily overlooked if they grew singly, but they cluster on the stem, and can be seen en masse carpeting meadows, heaths, dunes and chalky uplands in many areas of the British Isles from June to September. Having a honey-like scent, the flower maintains its fragrance even when dried, when it is reminiscent of new-mown hay, and in ancient times was a commonly used strewing herb and a filling for mattresses. The plant is perennial, with creeping rootstocks or runners, spreading its spikes of flowers above the meadow grasses.
The genus Galium comprises some 400 species of annual and perennial herbs found in many countries around the world. Our bedstraw is related to other common native wildflowers such as the ‘sticky’ Cleavers or Goosegrass (Galium aparine), and Sweet Woodruff, another strewing herb (Galium odoratum).
Medicinal uses
The plant has been used as a herbal remedy in urinary disorders and for epilepsy. It has also been prescribed for skin conditions, as in a soothing powder for reddened skin or used as a poultice for cuts and wounds.
Nicolas Culpeper, writing in 1653, refers to its usefulness for stopping ‘inward wounds’ and ‘inward bleedings’. He also recommends an ointment, made by boiling the plant with animal fat or salad oil, for burns and scalds, and to soothe tired feet.
A recipe (in a more modern herbal) for a ‘tincture’ suggests steeping the plant in vodka for two weeks, filtering the result and drinking a small dose three or four times a day for a few days. No comment was made as to exactly what this would cure…
A number of plants in this genus are now known to contain asperuloside, which as well as being the compound that produces the dried plant’s familiar scent, can be converted into prostaglandins, which stimulate blood vessels. Other chemical properties of Lady’s Bedstraw include anti-oxidants, which have been shown to slow down the growth of cancer cells under laboratory conditions. These contemporary discoveries of potentially useful medicinal properties may be of future interest to the pharmaceutical industry, although more research is needed.
Other uses
Culinary
Several references have been found about lady’s bedstraw’s use as a substitute for rennet in the making of cheese, and indeed Culpeper said a common alternative name for the plant was cheese-rennet. It is also said that it was used to colour Gloucester cheese.
Although the seeds are said to be edible, we do not encourage experimentation with raw plant material. The leaves may be cooked, and the roasted seed has apparently been used as a coffee substitute, though we have no record of whether this is worth the effort.
As a herb, one website suggests that bedstraw can be added to virtually any meat or fish dish, and used a flavouring for vegetable soups and sauces.
A non-alcoholic version of the ‘tincture’ mentioned above is made by grinding the plant up, leaving it to macerate in fresh spring water for a few hours, before straining it to drink.
Household
In medieval times bedstraw was believed to deter fleas, a useful adjunct to the pleasant fragrance it gave to one’s bedding; and more recently that the dried plant could be used against clothes moths. Now that we wash more frequently than our medieval forebears, it has cropped up instead as a suggested scent for our bathwater.
Myth and Magic
The plant’s use as a mattress filling was especially recommended for women in childbirth, particularly in Scandinavia, from which it got its local name Frigg’s grass (Frigg being the Norse goddess of childbirth).
One legend has it that the Virgin Mary lay on a bed of bracken and bedstraw to give birth. The bracken refused to recognise the baby Jesus, and as a result was deprived of its flowers, while the bedstraw bloomed to welcome the infant and its white flowers were thereupon turned to gold.
In Romania, a medieval custom associated with the plant still persists in country areas. The legend is that the Lady’s Bedstraw Fairy is born every year on the 9th of March, and on the 24th of June, being fully grown, she is celebrated with dancing and ceremonial. This is in acknowledgement of her gifts of fragrance and healing powers to flowers, and abundance to grain crops. Women also hang wreaths of bedstraw flowers and wheat on houses and fences to protect them from evil.
In Celtic mythology, the terrifying battle frenzy of the hero Cúchulainn was said to have been calmed by a tea made from Lady’s Bedstraw.
Aficionados of The Archers may like to know that a 2002 poll by Plantlife resulted in Lady’s Bedstraw being voted the County Flower of Borsetshire.
Acknowledgments– thanks for much of the above information to the following:
www.wildflowertrusts.org
www.plantlife.org.uk
www.bugwoman.london.com
www.agbillig.com
www.gardenorganic.org.uk
And my copy of Culpeper’s Complete Herbal
