Lesser Burdock

Lesser Burdock has a reddish-brown, ridged, hairy stem. The leaves are green above and woolly below and vary in size and shape. Lower leaves are larger and heart-shaped. Higher leaves are long and ovate. Lesser Burdock flowers are clustered together on short flower stalks. Flowers can be purple, red, pink or white and have outside hooked, spiny bracts which are green, tinged with purple.

Lesser Burdock flowers between July and October and can be found in a variety of habitats, like waste ground, roadsides and woods.

Once the flower heads dry, the hooked bracts will attach to animals and humans as they brush past, later falling off or being removed and so helping to disperse the seeds.

Quite a common plant in Britain, except in the north of Scotland.