Burdock

Arctium comes from the Greek and means "bear", in allusion to the involucre, writes Marie-Victorin. The involucre, for which I was ignorant until a few hours, "a meeting of bracts, whorled, or nested, inserted at the base of an umbel, a flower head or any other inflorescence. " Ah well thank you! That explains everything! Unless someone could please explain to me the relationship with the bear or did I mind too obtuse to grasp the obvious? Some argue that it would be because the inflorescence is rough and unkempt, but that, frankly, it does not stick. Unless this is an allusion to the massive plantigrade claws, which, as everyone knows, are not retractable. No more than are the bracts of the involucre of burdock, as we have all experienced the day he had to cut to the heart of the hair to remove them.

The name is French even more obscure. For some, it would be a metaphorical use of the Lyon "burdock", which meant "bug". All this comes from the popular Latin barrum, which means "mud," the pin-like stain. You understand something, you at this gibberish? Others say that he would rather the radical baritare Latin meaning "oppose, differ." Youhou! You should hear it!

Lappa, meaning "seize, take," was the name of the genre before Mr. Linnaeus arrived with his new terminology and pushing the species level. The Romans designated and all the plants whose fruits cling to clothes.

Due to its characteristics, especially its fruit, burdock has been awarded many popular names over the centuries: artichoke, wild rhubarb, tobacco devil's prey, graquias, toques, Bourrier choubourrache, cocklebur, cleavers, péterolle ... And "love": the kind of flies which Spike can not get rid!

French children call "buttons fire" the fruits they have fun to hang in rows on their clothes. However, to Anglophones, they lose the grade since nicknamed "buttons on the beggar" (beggar's buttons). In my youth, they were known simply as the "pipiques."

Finally, in France, it has also been called "the scabby grass" because of its effectiveness against chronic disease of the skin and scalp.