What's blooming in your back yard?

Upon close examination, the burdock flower is lovely, with a purple bud and its white flowers striated with indigo bands. There was a woman once who had a beautiful dog, Bella.

Bella was a Great Pyrenees mastiff, an enormous dog with a double coat of long, pure white fur. Bella thought the word, "No" meant "Go," so she would always escape, and run through the adjoining pastures, rolling in old and new manure until she became a large brown and stinky dog. But for the woman, cleaning the manure off the dog was the least of her problems.

After the escapes, buried deep into both coats were nasty burrs that could not be coaxed out without damaging Bella's fur. So matted were the fur and burrs, they had to be cut out, leaving large gaps in Bella's smooth, white coat. The burrs were the flower heads and seedpods of burdock.

One summer in 1948, a man strolled with his Irish pointer in mountains along the Swiss- French border. After the hike, the man found both he and his dog were covered with burrs. Plucking one from his dog, the man looked at the burr under a microscope. While the dog's name will be forever unknown, the burr plucked from it created a marvelous invention still in use today.

Left: An inconspicuous green plant along the waysides, burdock makes itself known when it is brought back home tightly caught in clothing or matted in pet hair. George de Mestral, a Swiss inventor, recognized something when he examined the burdock burr. Covering the burr were many small hooks. When de Mestral looked at the burr from his pants, he found its hooks had attached to the loops in the pant material. An accomplished inventor already, he realized the same hook-loop system could be created to join things together.

De Mestral named his invention after the French words velours and crochet, which he combined to create the word Velcro. His invention was patented in 1955. By the last quarter of the 20th century, children no longer learned to tie their shoes, they could just Velcro them. Velcro's use can be found in many products, even in surgery and on space missions — which is good use for a noxious, invasive weed.

Right: Though the tips of the burdock hooks are pale in color it does not mean they are weak; while hard to see, at the end of each hook is a hard dark prong that will catch on anything. (Recorder photos by Cynthia B. Coleman) Burdock or Arctium minus (the local variety) was introduced to North America from Europe and Asia. It can be found in all the lower 48 states except for Florida. While it is not found in Alaska, burdock is present in Greenland.

The common name of burdock comes from two words. Bur is the shorten form of the Latin word "burra," meaning lock of wool, as in entangled or matted from. Dock derives from the Old English word "docce," and means weeds with large, broad leaves.

While Arctium minus seems to refer to a "minor" variety of burdock, the Lesser Burdock can grow up to six feet. It is a biennial — the first year it sprouts from seed, the plant forms a large circular cluster of leaves close to the ground and no flowers are produced. The second year, a thick stalk grows full of leaves and burrs. The leaves along the stem are hairy underneath and can grow up to a foot in length.

Between July and October, burdocks bloom. The purple and while blossoms are hardly noticeable except under close examination. The flower buds and stem leaves are the same color and burdock blends well with other plants along the waysides. It is scarcely noticed until the burrs begin to grab hold and then, they hold fast and tight.

Burdock root is sold as a medicinal herb, but because of the root's resemblance to deadly nightshade or belladonna; never try to harvest roots without someone experienced in the field.

Before burdocks flower, the young and tender stalks can be harvested and steamed, with a taste similar to artichoke, which the burdock is related. Since there are many burdocks and other plants resembling burdocks, caution should be used before eating any plant not definitively identified.

Burdocks are considered noxious and invasive because of the ease with which they take root in pastures and hay fields; most livestock (except for a few goats) do not graze on burdocks. Burdocks are secondary hosts for powdery mildew and root rot and can infect commercial crops.

While its burrs are a nuisance for animal owners, those pesky burrs have hooked themselves into modern culture as a fastener for the times. In every crowd, there is bound to be that ubiquitous, familiar sound of Velcro ripping apart. But the burrs themselves make no sound when removed from animal or humans, except for a few lost groans or moans when the burr pulls on hair and fur.