Scientific name	Galium aparine – Urtica dioica wayside community
Common name	Cleavers – Common Nettle wayside community
Community code	SC1F

 

 

Download full pdf synopsis: SC1F

 

Vegetation

This is a herbaceous community typically formed of patches of Urtica dioica through which straggle the hooked stems of Galium aparine. The rather coarse grasses Poa trivialis and Dactylis glomerata are constants, as is Ranunculus repens. Often, a recorder will find some patches of Holcus lanatus or Agrostis stoloniferia, tangles of Calystegia sepium and, perhaps thankfully, some dock leaves in the guise of Rumex obtusifolius or Rumex sanguineus. Umbellifers as a group are fairly frequent here; Heracleum sphondylium and its seasonal successor Torilis japonica are the most common, but the archaeophyte Aegopodium podagraria also occurs near habitation.

Ecology

This common vegetation type is found on rather moist, disturbed, fertile soils in the lowlands. It occurs as a saum community fringing woodland, in the wayside between paths and hedgerows, in abandoned gardens and fields and on waste heaps.

 

Sub-communities

No sub-communities are described.

 

Similar communities

The community is unlikely to be confused with any others.

Conservation value

Vegetation corresponding to this community is typically of relatively low conservation value.

 

Management

This community usually occurs where there has been some disturbance but a general lack of management. Stands in verges and waysides may be periodically cut back.