Wood burdock

Arctium nemorosum, the wood burdock or woodland burdock, is a stout biennial herb in the family Asteraceae, native to Europe and parts of western Asia, where it grows in damp woodland margins, hedgerows, riverbanks and shaded ruderal habitats. In the first year it forms a large rosette of long-petiolate, broadly ovate to cordate leaves with rounded basal lobes, dark green and slightly hairy above and white-cottony beneath, the largest of which may exceed 50 centimetres in length. The second-year flowering stem is erect, much-branched and ribbed, reaching 1 to 2.5 metres in height. The flower heads are globose to ovoid, 2 to 3.5 centimetres across, arranged in elongated, racemose or paniculate inflorescences; the involucral bracts are slender and terminate in stiff hooked tips that cling to clothing and animal fur. Tubular florets are purple to pinkish-purple. It is distinguished from the more familiar A. lappa by its narrower, often pyriform heads and shorter peduncles, and from A. minus by its larger heads.