Great burdock seizes the day.
Sometimes in January you have to look a little closer to find flowers. Here’s one. Actually it’s not a flower any more—it’s a seed pod. And quite a grabby one at that.
Great burdock is of the genus articum lappa, a name composed from Greek terms that appropriately evoke the idea of “roughly, to seize”. After the dark purple flowers are done, the tiny curved hooks at the end of the bracts grab on to anything that passes by and off they go to new environments.
ROSALIND. "How full of briers is this working-day world!" CELIA. "They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery. If we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.”
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Burdock is a powerhouse of antioxidants and is valued it for its many healing powers but it’s played another notable role in human history. In 1941 Swiss engineer, Georges de Mestral, took a walk through the woods with his dog and, finding them both covered with burs when they got home, he began studying the seed pod’s adhesive powers. Eight years later Velcro was introduced, transforming human endeavors as commonplace as fastening a child’s shoes and as extraordinary as bracing equipment on the International Space Station.
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