A tall and cheerful native flower that may be abundant in some areas and absent in others. It likes the edge of the woods, and seems to be happiest on a hillside. These plants were part of a large colony growing on a hillside, just below the edge of the woods, in Mount Lebanon, where they were blooming in late July; they were among the earliest in their patch to bloom.

Until the flowers appear, the plants closely resemble Ironweed (Vernonia spp.), and indeed another common name for them is “Yellow Ironweed.” The stems, however, are a dead giveaway: they have prominent “wings,” meaning that they are flattened out into a thin membrane along the edge.

The flower heads are also distinctive. The disk florets are unusually large, arranged pincushion-fashion. The drooping rays are irregular and rather sloppy; there may be only two of them, or up to eight, and they be be significantly different in size and shape.

However, though no one of the individual flower heads may be a florist’s showpiece, their effect en masse is quite decorative, and this is a very desirable native wildflower for those who have the space to let it run riot.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

ACTINÓMERIS Nutt. Heads many-flowered; rays neutral, few or none. Involucral bracts few, herbaceous, nearly equal, soon defiexed beneath the globular disk. Receptacle small, chaffy. Achenes flat, obovate, winged or wingless, at maturity spreading in all directions; pappus of 2-3 smooth persistent awns. —Tall branching perennials, with serrate feather-veined leaves tapering to the base and mostly decurrent on the stem. Heads corymbed ; flowers chiefly yellow. (Name from aktis, a ray, and meris, a part; alluding to the irregularity of the rays.)

A. alternifòlia (L.) DC. Stem somewhat hairy, usually winged above. 1-2 m. high ; leaves alternate or the lower opposite, oblong or ovate-lanceolate, pointed at both ends; rays 2-8, irregular. (A. squarrosa Nutt.; Verbesina alternifolia Britton.) — Rich soil, N. J. to Ont., Ia., Kan., and southw. Aug., Sept.

Once in a while, a Calliopsis or Plains Coreopsis grows with solid red flowers. Naturally, this trait has been seized on by breeders to produce reliably red varieties, and this plant may well be a descendant of one of those domesticated breeds. It was growing in a hillside meadow in Scott Township, where it was blooming in late July.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

COREOPSIS L. TICKSEED. Heads many-flowered, radiate; rays mostly 8, neutral, rarely wanting. Involucre double; each series of about 8 bracts, the outer foliaceous and somewhat spreading; the inner broader and appressed, nearly membranaceous. Receptacle flat, with membranaceous chaff deciduous with the fruit. Achenes flat, obcompressed (i.e. flattened parallel with the bracts of the involucre), often winged, not narrowed at the top, 2-toothed or 2-awned, or sometimes naked at the summit; the awns not barbed downwardly. — Herbs, generally with opposite leaves and yellow or party-colored (rarely purple) rays. Too near the last section of Bidens, but generally well distinguished as a genus. (Name from koris, a bug, and opsis, appearance; from the form of the achene.)

§1. Style-tips truncate or nearly so; outer involucre small and short; rays rosecolor or yellow, with brown base; pappus an obscure border or none.

С. tinctoria Nutt. Annual, glabrous, often 1 m. high; leaves 1-2-pinnately divided, the lobes lanceolate to linear; achenes oblong, wingless; rays yellow, with more or less of crimson-brown. — Minn, to Tex., etc.; common in cultivation; often escaping to roadsides, etc., eastw.

Also called Gray-Headed Coneflower or Pinnate Coneflower. This is a rare plant in Pennsylvania, though not farther west, and certainly not rare in this hillside clearing in Scott Township, where these flowers were blooming in late July. The flower heads are distinctive: a thimble-shaped cone, starting greenish-gray and becoming brown as the disc florets bloom, with long drooping yellow rays  that flutter in the breeze. The leaves are finely divided.

Gray places this species in the genus Lepachys. This is a curious example of the rule of priority in botanical nomenclature. The famous (and famously difficult) botanist, archaeologist, ethnographer, historian, journalist, explorer, philologist, unlocker of the secrets of the Maya, and proto-evolutionist C. S. Rafinesque described the genus Ratibida in 1818; a year later, he described the same genus in a different publication as Lepachys. Thus he has the peculiar distinction of having beaten himself to the naming of his own genus.

This common weed often grows in vacant lots. The flowers are usually purple or pink, but a rare white form sometimes occurs.

American Italians call this plant cardone, or cardoon if you like a more Anglicized term, a valuable free vegetable whose stalks many Italian families gather in great quantities. The European Cardoon is a different plant, but it seems that the Burdock makes a good substitute. In Japan, the root is eaten as gobo. The next time you see a vacant lot filled with burdock, remember that you are seeing nothing less than a smorgasbord of free appetizers.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

ARCTIUM L. BURDOCK. Heads many-flowered; flowers all tubular, perfect, similar. Involucre globular; the imbricated bracts coriaceous and appressed at base, attenuate to long stiff points with hooked tips. Receptacle bristly. Achenes oblong, flattened, wrinkled transversely; pappus short, of numerous rough bristles, separate and deciduous. — Coarse biennial weeds, with large unarmed petioled roundish or ovate mostly cordate leaves floccose-tomentose beneath, and small solitary or clustered heads; flowers purple, rarely white. (Name probably from arktos, a bear, from the rough involucre.)

A. minus Bernh. (COMMON B.) Heads racemose or subracemose, 1.5-3 tm. broad; involucre glabrous or arachnoid; bracts shorter, more slender and more arcuate than in the preceding. (A. Lappa, var. Gray.) — Roadsides and waste places, too common throughout our range except on the northeastern borders where largely replaced by the preceding [A. lappa]. — Including A. Lappa, var. tomentosum Gray, a form differing only in its more or less arachnoid involucre, and apparently less marked or characteristic than the European A. tomentosum Mill. (Nat. from Eu.)

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In Wild Flowers East of the Rockies (1910), Chester Albert Reed gives us a good description of this plant and its life:

BURDOCK (Arctium minus) (EUROPEAN) is a very common plant on waste ground, along roadsides and the edges of woods. The plant is often four feet or more high. The lower leaves are very large, often more than a foot in length, heart-shaped, deep green and finely veined above, greyish beneath because of the fine wool that covers the under surfaces. The upper leaves are smaller, more ovate in form and less densely woolly on the undersides. The flowerheads grow in clusters at the ends of the branches. The involucre is almost spherical,—composed of numerous bracts, each terminating in a sharp, hooked point. Tubular florets, only, are seated within this involucre; they are purple and white in color, and secrete an abundance of nectar, on which account they are frequented by honey bees.

We have seen how the Milkweed attaches to each of its seeds, a little parachute so it may fly away on the winds and found new colonies at a distance from the parent plants. We have also seen how the Beggar-tick and members of the Genus (Bidens) disperse their seeds by attaching them to the hair of animals or the clothing of man. The present species adopts the policy of the Beggar-ticks, but instead of single seeds, it attaches the whole bur-like head by means of its numerous little hooks. They cling tenaciously to everything they touch; doubtless most of my readers recall massing these burs together to make castles, funny men, animals, etc.

We have two species of this plant,—the present, and one slightly larger and with coarser leaves, (A. Lappa). Both of them are immigrants from across the water.

In our continuing quest to bring you flowers blooming in the wrong colors (see our purple Queen Anne’s Lace, white Deptford Pink, lavender Bugles, and white New England Aster) we bring you a rare white burdock—rare in general, but rather common in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Beechview. Normally the florets of Burdock are in the pink to purple range; this white form was growing out of a hedge in Beechview, where it was blooming in the middle of July.

To Italians this common weed is known as cardone, or cardoon if you like a more Anglicized term, a valuable free vegetable whose stalks many Italian families gather in great quantities. The European Cardoon is a different plant, but it seems that the Burdock makes a good substitute. In Japan, the root is eaten as gobo. The next time you see a vacant lot filled with burdock, remember that you are seeing nothing less than a smorgasbord of free appetizers.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

ARCTIUM L. BURDOCK. Heads many-flowered; flowers all tubular, perfect, similar. Involucre globular; the imbricated bracts coriaceous and appressed at base, attenuate to long stiff points with hooked tips. Receptacle bristly. Achenes oblong, flattened, wrinkled transversely; pappus short, of numerous rough bristles, separate and deciduous. — Coarse biennial weeds, with large unarmed petioled roundish or ovate mostly cordate leaves floccose-tomentose beneath, and small solitary or clustered heads; flowers purple, rarely white. (Name probably from arktos, a bear, from the rough involucre.)

A. minus Bernh. (COMMON B.) Heads racemose or subracemose, 1.5-3 tm. broad; involucre glabrous or arachnoid; bracts shorter, more slender and more arcuate than in the preceding. (A. Lappa, var. Gray.) — Roadsides and waste places, too common throughout our range except on the northeastern borders where largely replaced by the preceding [A. lappa]. — Including A. Lappa, var. tomentosum Gray, a form differing only in its more or less arachnoid involucre, and apparently less marked or characteristic than the European A. tomentosum Mill. (Nat. from Eu.)

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In Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know (1914), Frederic William Stack gives us a number of other common names for the plant, and a good bit of its popular lore:

BURDOCK. COCKLE BUR. BEGGAR’S BUTTON. CUCKOO BUTTON

Arctium minus. Thistle Family.

Children delight to gather the shaggy green burs of the Beggar’s Button and form them into birds’ nests, baskets, dolls, and a various assortment of similar playthings. They well know, too, the bitter taste they leave on the fingers. The Burdock is a large, coarse, bushy, branching biennial, growing from two to four feet high. The large, rough stalk is very leafy, and is round and grooved. The toothless, hollow-stemmed leaves are large, broad, and alternating. They are pointed-oval in shape, more or less wavy, and rather thin and veiny. The lower ones are heart-shaped. The small flower head is composed of numerous silky, tubular florets of varying shades of purple, gathered into soft tufts and set in a rather large, conical green bur, which is thickly covered with many sharp, spreading, long-hooked, and sticky bristles. They are set on short stems in irregular terminal, bunchy clusters. The root and fresh leaves are employed as a remedy in blood and skin disorders, and also for swellings and rheumatism. In Japan the root is known as Gobo, and is a popular vegetable in the country. Burdock is a familiar plant commonly found around neglected buildings, and along fence rows, roadways, and in pastures patches along streams and in swamps, and flowering from May to July. The flower stem resembles the leaves, but is larger, and from one side, near the middle, it sends out a thick, fleshy, tapering spike, which is densely crowded with minute, greenish yellow florets. This spike is tender and edible when about half developed. The root which has a strong, aromatic fragrance, is used by country people when dried or candied, as a remedy for dyspepsia, and as a stimulant and tonic for feeble digestion. Calamus appears to have been known to the ancient Babylonians, and also by the Greeks. It is used in India to some extent, and the powdered root is an esteemed insecticide in Ceylon and India. It also produces a volatile oil that is largely used in perfumery. Calamus can always be identified by the fragrance emitted by the roots, and for edible purposes similar roots should be avoided. The interior of the stalk is sweet. It ranges from Nova Scotia to Ontario and Minnesota, south to Kansas and the Gulf of Mexico. Also in Europe and Asia. This species grows from two to six feet high.