Commonly found on field and forest edges, particularly the moist areas. The young leaf steams are edible while still light green, as they...Read More get older the stems develop a red color and get fibrous and bitter, the young green stems are a yearly treat if you have access to lots of them, they are quite good batter dipped and fried. Foragers and survivalists may find use of the leaves to wrap wild food for open fire cooking. The roots of the older plants are said to be edible.
Tap root can go to 4ft, hard to get rid of. Little redeeming value to wildlife. Deer will browse this plant only if no other food is ava...Read Moreilable. Burs stick to clothes, animal fur and can even be fatal to birds: "Common Burdock (Arctium minus) is an invasive, exotic plant that can be deadly to small birds like kinglets, warblers and bats. Burdock’s burrs act like Velcro to trap birds and bats unfortunate enough to come in contact with them." http://www.wihumane.org/wildlife/burdock.aspx
Comanche county, TX (Zone 8a) | March 2009 | positive
This plant doesn't seem to get many good reviews, but the second year stalks and that deep taproot are very tasty, sort of like a potato....Read More Great survival food, one of nature's many wonderful gifts.
Coon Rapids, MN (Zone 4a) | February 2008 | negative
This species pop up rarely in gardens but are more frequent in wide open spaces, especially roadsides. They seem to like woodland edges -...Read More have large coarse leaves that look like rhubarb but feel like sandpaper. This plant can even survive in infrequently mown lawns and occidently even in frequently mown lawns. The flowers look like thistle but no other plant species have such large leaves combined with flowers. This is a vicious plant - I have read articles of birds and bugs getting stuck in the flowerheads and died - the green part of the flowers have sticky or barbed hairs that can get entangled in feathers and grab onto bugs. Don't grow it - there are better large leaf plants that is not so rough to the touch.
Ugh...this weed has taken over a large moist area of my yard. It's very aggressive, hard to eradicate (taproot is impossible to fully re...Read Moremove), chokes out everything around it, and produces tons of "stickers" that just produce more plants next year if not removed. I swear they grow 2-3" a day in the summer!
Commonly found on field and forest edges, particularly the moist areas. The young leaf steams are edible while still light green, as they...Read More
Tap root can go to 4ft, hard to get rid of. Little redeeming value to wildlife. Deer will browse this plant only if no other food is ava...Read More
Quite common in the UK, it seems to do particularly well on disturbed ground, reaches about six feet high.
This plant doesn't seem to get many good reviews, but the second year stalks and that deep taproot are very tasty, sort of like a potato....Read More
This species pop up rarely in gardens but are more frequent in wide open spaces, especially roadsides. They seem to like woodland edges -...Read More
Ugh...this weed has taken over a large moist area of my yard. It's very aggressive, hard to eradicate (taproot is impossible to fully re...Read More
Common Burdock, Lesser Burdock Arctium minus is Naturalized in Texas and other States.
Don't confuse the leaves with the poison leaves of rhubarb.