Herb to Know: Burdock

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Pesky weed, gourmet vegetable, or healing herb? Maybe all three. You’ve probably picked burdock’s prickly fruits (burs) out of your socks or the dog’s tail after an autumn hike, but did you know that burdock’s roots, stems, leaves, and seeds are esteemed as food and have a long tradition of medicinal use?

The genus Arctium comprises about ten species of robust biennials native to temperate Eurasia. Two of them, great burdock (A. lappa) and the similar but shorter common burdock (A. minor), are naturalized throughout much of North America. A third species, cotton burdock (A. tomentosum), occurs here sparingly.

First-year plants have long, fleshy taproots and long, celerylike stalks topped by a large, somewhat triangular leaf. The burdock leaf stem is skinny, and the leaf is dull green above and covered with gray down underneath. Great burdock leaf stalks are solid, while those of common burdock are hollow, a feature that botanists use to tell the two species apart. In their second year, the plants put up tall flower stalks—as tall as 9 feet in great burdock. These bear smaller, oval leaves. Great burdock has flat-topped clusters of stalked, thistlelike purple flowers up to 2 inches across that bloom from July to October; common burdock’s flowers are similar but short-stalked or stalkless and smaller. Each flower head consists of numerous thin, tubular florets, which protrude from the bristly green bur-to-be. The mature burs stick on animals’ fur and people’s clothing, dispersing the dark brown crescent-shaped seeds far and wide.

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