Greater burdock

Greater burdock (Arctium lappa), also called edible burdock, is a biennial (sometimes perennial) herb of the daisy family (Asteraceae), genus Arctium, growing 0.5–2.5 m tall. The taproot is large and fleshy, 30–100 cm long and 2–3 cm across, brown outside and white within. The stems are erect, stout, grooved and branched, woolly when young. The basal leaves are very large and heart-shaped (cordate), 30–80 cm long, green above and cottony-white beneath, on long petioles; the stem leaves are smaller. The flower heads (capitula) are globose, 3–4 cm across, made of many purple-pink tubular florets and surrounded by numerous spine-tipped bracts, gathered in corymbose clusters and flowering in summer–autumn. The fruit is an achene (cypsela) 5–7 mm long, brown, with a short pappus of bristles; the dried head forms the hooked burr that clings to animal fur and clothing.

Updated by lebachungtdh@gmail.com · 10/12/2026

Greater burdock is native to temperate Eurasia (Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) and has been widely introduced and naturalised in North America and elsewhere; it grows in ditches, roadsides, waste ground, near settlements and on forest edges, preferring moist, nitrogen-rich soils. Its root (gobo) is cultivated as a vegetable in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. The root is rich in inulin (up to 45–50% of dry weight), a prebiotic fibre, and contains the lignans arctiin and arctigenin, phenolic acids (caffeoylquinic acids), flavonoids, essential oil, polyacetylenes, mucilage and tannins. In Chinese medicine the fruit (牛蒡子, niúbàngzǐ, burdock fruit) is pungent and cold: it disperses wind-heat, clears heat and resolves toxin, promotes eruption of rashes and benefits the throat, treating wind-heat common cold, sore throat, measles and sores; the root (牛蒡根) is diuretic, blood-cooling and laxative. Western herbalism uses the root as an alterative, diuretic and diaphoretic for boils, eczema and rheumatism. Caution: wild burdock roots can be mistaken for the poisonous roots of the nightshade Atropa belladonna; high doses of inulin cause flatulence.

Updated by lebachungtdh@gmail.com · 10/12/2026