Location of Burdock

Burdock has often been described as “a stout handsome plant, with large, wavy leaves and round heads of purple flowers. It is enclosed in globular involucres of long stiff scales with hooked tips, the scales being also often interwoven with a white, cottony substance. The whole plant is a dull, pale green, the stem about three to four feet and branched, rising from a biennial root. The lower leaves are very large, on long solid foot-stalks, furrowed above, frequently more than a foot long, heart-shaped and of a grey colour on their under surfaces from the mass of fine down with which they are covered. The upper leaves are much smaller, more egg-shaped in form and not so densely clothed beneath with the grey down…The flower-heads are found expanded during the latter part of the summer and well into the autumn: all the florets are tubular, and stamens are dark purple and the styles whitish. The plant owes its dissemination greatly to the little hooked prickles of its involucres, which adhere to everything with which they come in contact, and by attaching themselves to coats of animals are often carried to a distance”. (Grieve, 143) Most sources indicate that dried root, from first-year growth, is the most potent and forms the official drug. They are a soft, fleshy, wrinkled root, crowned with a tuft of hairy leaf-stalks. They are grayish-brown externally, with whitish internal “flesh”, and a somewhat thick bark about a quarter of the diameter of the root; and soft wood tissues, with a radiate structure. Burdock root has a sweetish and mucilaginous taste. The roots should be dug in July, and can be lifted with a beet-lifter or a deep-running plough. They usually run twelve inches or more in length and about one inch think; sometimes, however, they extend two to three feet into the ground making it necessary to dig by hand. The leaves and fruits (frequently, though inaccurately, called seeds) are also used. Burdock leaves, which are less used than the root, are collected in July as well. They have a somewhat bitter taste. The seeds (or fruit) are collected when they are brownish-gray, wrinkled, and ¼ inch long and 1/16^th inch in diameter; and indication that they are ripe. They are shaken out of the head and dried by spreading them out on paper in the sun. Burdock grows openly in waste places and hedgerows; therefore it can be easily collected in the wild state, and is seldom worth cultivating. It will grow in almost any soil, but the roots are formed best in a light, well-drained soil. If you choose to cultivate this plant, the seeds germinate readily and may be sown directly in the field, either in autumn or early spring. (Grieve, 144) Burdock grows throughout the world, and is sought for its nutritional and medicinal properties, as well as being a much despised plant invading fields and pastures throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and China. It is found in Hawaii, known by its Japanese name of Gobo, where it is known for its ability to increase strength and endurance. In North America and Europe, it grows alongside roads, in ditch banks, hedgerow, and waste places. (Weiss, 91)