Burdock

Description:

Representatives of the genus are biennial, almost non-prickly large herbaceous plants. The height of one of the largest species of the genus, big burdock (Arctium lappa), can reach 3 m. The taproot is powerful, up to 1.5 m long. Leaves are large (up to 40 cm), heart-shaped, alternate, simple, petiolate. Flowers in homogamous baskets are collected in a branched General inflorescence-corymbose or paniculate. Flowers are bisexual, identical, all fruiting, with a regular tubular five-lobed Corolla. The General color is flat, barely fleshy, covered with numerous bristles, initially flat, then spirally twisted. The wrapper is glabrous or cobwebby, its leaves are multi-rowed, linear or lanceolate, the outer and middle leaves are narrowed into a deflected point ending in a small hook, the inner ones are more or less filmy, straight. Stamens with free glabrous filaments and arrowy anthers at the base, ending at the apex with narrowed up or pointed appendages and with filamentous glabrous simple or two - or multi-divided appendages at the base. The column is surrounded at the base by an supraplastic disk that remains in the fruit, with linear, curved hairy branches at the base. Fruits — oblong achenes, flattened from the sides, truncated at the top, ribbed, usually more or less wrinkled between the ribs (especially at the base and at the top), rarely smooth or almost smooth. The tuft is short, its bristles are uneven, rough, multi-rowed, free to the base, falling off, the attachment area is basal, straight. After maturation, baskets with seeds easily cling to animal hair (or human clothing). Thus, the seeds are spread over considerable distances.

Habitat:

The genus is Mediterranean in origin, and some of its species are widely dispersed. The range of the genus is the temperate zone of Europe, Asia and America.