Alternate name: Lesser Burrdock

Family: Asteraceae, Aster view all from this family

Description Large, bushy plant with globular prickly, pink to lavender flower heads.
Flowers: heads 3/4" (2 cm) wide, overlapping green bracts with hooked tips, enclosing the numerous, tubular purplish florets.
Leaves: up to 18" (45 cm) long, ovate, lower ones heart-shaped, dark green, woolly underneath, with hollow leafstalks.
Height: 1-5' (30-150 cm).

Flower July-October.

Habitat Old fields and waste places.

Range Throughout much of North America except far north and Florida.

Discussion The prickly heads of this Old World weed easily catch on fur and clothing, thus providing an excellent mechanism for seed dispersal. Its young leaves and leafstalks, roots, and flower stalks can all be prepared in various ways and eaten. The Great Burdock (A. lappa), a larger plant up to 9' (2.7 m) tall, has bigger flower heads on solid, grooved leafstalks.