Plant of the week: Plant used for traditional cordial also a highly regarded antiseptic

Name: Greater Burdock (Arctium lappa)

Otherwise known as: Beggar’s Buttons, Thorny Burr

Habitat: A biennial member of the Compositae family growing to about 1.3m in wasteland and barren sites in Europe. It has a tall, angled stem containing large, alternate, ovate leaves with the familiar this-tle-head burrs surmounted by dense clusters of deep purple tubular flowers. The burrs easily attach to passing animals and clothing, thereby distributing the seeds.

What does it do: The name is taken from the Greek for bear – arktos– a reference to the roughness of the burrs. An old English name for Burdock was herrif taken from the Anglo-Saxon verb to seize.

The main constituents obtained from the root of the plant are inulin, starch, mucilage, tannins and res-in. It is highly regarded as an alterative, a diuretic with antiseptic, diaphoretic, hypoglycaemic and choleretic properties. Herbalists recommend drinking infusions for rhuematic pains and to combat in-fluenza. A decoction is applied externally for wounds, ulcers and eczema. Culpeper thought highly of Burdock, suggesting ‘the leaves applied to places troubled with the shrinking in the sinews and arteries give much ease… and the juice from the root, mixed with old wine, doth wonderfully help with the biting of any serpents and easeth the pain from the mad dog biting’. Medieval herbalists claimed that there was no better purifier of the blood and that by drawing the plant across the womb of a pregnant woman they were able to adjust the position of the foetus to ensure a safe birth.

Country folk would add Dandelions to Burdock to make a refreshing summer cordial and the stems were stripped in a manner similar to the Cypriot practice with the stems of Artichokes and consumed with salads. In late summer the stems would be candied like Angelica.