noun

• A herbaceous plant with small, lightly perfumed, white or yellow flowers and whorls of slender leaves. It was formerly used for stuffing mattresses.

  Genus Galium, family Rubiaceae: several species, including yellow bedstraw (G. verum)

  ‘Wildflowers: fire pink, several kinds of blue violets, pink and yellow lady's slippers, goldenrod, blue-stem goldenrod, blue asters, and bedstraws.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Magnificent displays of bluebells are out just now and the ground vegetation also has an abundance of foxgloves, heath bedstraw and wood sorrel.’
  • ‘If you flick through the pages of wild flower books you'll see a host of different types of bedstraws, many of which only those armed with a hand lens and a keen eye will be able to differentiate.’
  • ‘Nettles and tangles of bindweed, pelt-snagging goosegrass and bedstraw alike were avoided, while he gazed with pleasure on the eager growth of scattered rowan and hawthorn saplings.’
  • ‘Canada goldenrod and northern bedstraw are among the few wildflowers.’