[ 1228 ]
ARCTIUM Lappa.
Burdock, or C lo t-B u r.
SYNGENESIS Polygamia-cequalis.
G en. Char. Cal. globose ; each of its scales terminating
with an incurved hook.
Spec. Char. Leaves heart-shaped, without prickles,
on footstalks.
Syn. Arctium Lappa. Linn. Sp. PI. 1143. Sm. FI.
Brit. 844. Hulls. 348. With. 694. Hull. 178.
Relh. 314. Sibth. 243. Abbot. 174. Curt. Bond,
fasc. 4 . t. 55. Woodv. Med. Bot. t. 15.
Lappa n. 1—6. D ill, in Raii Syn. 196, 197.
A PLANT almost every where to be found in waste or neglected
ground, varying much according to the luxuriancy of
the soil, (see Ray’s Synopsis), and thriving particularly on
dunghills. It flowers in July and August, and is biennial.
Root tapering. Stem erect, much branched and widely
spreading, somewhat pyramidal, 3 feet or more in height,
furrowed, downy, often purple. Leaves alternate, heart-shaped,
acute, waved, ribbed, three-nerved at the base, white and
downy beneath. They stand on concave footstalks, and are,
when full sized, almost the largest leaves of any British plant.
Flowers nearly sessile, clustered about the upper part of the
stem and branches. Calyx globular, formed of numerous
narrow scales, each tipped with a little incurved hook, by
means of which the whole calyx, when laden with ripe seed,
easily separating from its stalk, adheres to the hairy or woolly
coats of animals, who can scarcely free themselves from this
encumbrance without rubbing the calyx to pieces, and so
scattering the seed about their habitations, where it is most
likely to meet with a manured soil. The florets are purple, all
tubular and regular. Receptacle bristly, as is also the crown
of the seed.
The flowers vary in size, as well as in having more or less
cottony down about their calyx.