Arctium lappa
species of plant
Arctium lappa, commonly called greater burdock, gobō (牛蒡/ゴボウ), edible burdock, lappa, beggar's buttons, thorny burr, or happy major is a Eurasian species of plants in the family Asteraceae.
It has become an invasive weed of high-nitrogen soils in North America, Australia, and other regions, but is cultivated for its vegetable root.
Description
Greater burdock is a biennial plant, rather tall, reaching as much as 3 metres (10 feet). The fleshy taproot can grow up to 1 m (3+1⁄2 ft) long and 2 centimetres (3⁄4 in) across. It has large, alternating, wavy-edged cordiform leaves that have a long petiole and are pubescent on the underside.
The flowers are purple and grouped in globular capitula, united in clusters. They appear in mid-summer, from July to September. The capitula are surrounded by an involucre made out of many bracts, each curving to form a hook, allowing the mature fruits to be carried long distances. The fruits are long, compressed achenes with short pappus hairs.
Chemistry
Burdock roots contain mucilage, sulfurous acetylene compounds, polyacetylenes and bitter guaianolide-type constituents.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Arctium lappa” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26932. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arctium lappa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.