Greater burdock

About

Greater burdock is a large Eurasian biennial with huge leaves and hooked burs that cling to clothes and fur. Its deep taproot makes it hard to pull, and the burs are a nuisance for pets and livestock.

Also called great burdock, edible burdock, gobo, beggar's buttons, burdock

How to identify it

Look for

The first year it makes a big rosette of heart-shaped leaves, often more than 6 inches long and wide, rough on top and woolly underneath. The second year it grows 2 to 10 feet tall with purple, thistle-like flower heads over 1.2 inches wide in flat-topped clusters, which ripen into round burs covered in hooked bracts. The lower leaf stalks are solid, and the fleshy taproot can reach 3 feet deep.

Look-alikes

Common burdock (Arctium minus) is more widespread and very similar, but has hollow lower leaf stalks and smaller flower heads (under 1.2 inches) on short stalks along the stem.

Where it grows

Roadsides, stream banks, old fields, pastures, woodland and lawn edges, vacant lots and neglected corners, in rich, moist soil.

When

Rosettes form the first year; plants bolt and flower in summer and fall of the second year, then die after setting burs.

How it spreads

Only by seed; burs hitch rides on clothing and fur (a burdock plant can make about 15,000 seeds, which live only a few years in soil).

Most common in

What to do, gentlest first

Start at the top. Weed killers are a last step; always read and follow the label.

1. Stop the burs Prevent

   Remove plants before they flower so no new burs form; the seed bank is short-lived, so a few years of no seeding clears it.

2. Dig out the whole taproot By hand

   Dig first-year rosettes or young plants and remove the entire taproot. Mowing works only after plants bolt but before they flower.

   Wear gloves and long sleeves; bur bristles irritate skin and eyes. Bag burs; don't compost them.

3. Broadleaf herbicide on rosettes Conventional spray

   Herbicides with 2,4-D, dicamba or metsulfuron control burdock.

   Read and follow the label; many lawn and brush herbicides also kill garden plants.

Uses, wildlife and pets

Edible?

The young taproot is a vegetable called gobo in Japan and Korea, and young leaves and immature flower stalks are also eaten. Harvest first-year roots only, be sure of the ID, and never gather from sprayed or roadside ground.

Not 100% sure? Don't eat it. Never pick from ground that may have been sprayed, or along roads and railways.

For wildlife

Bees and other pollinators visit the flowers, but the burs can trap small birds and bats.

Pets

Not listed by the ASPCA. The burs tangle in fur, and their fine bristles can irritate the eyes, skin and airways of people, dogs and horses.