Hare's-foot plantain
Plantago lagopus
Family · Plantaginaceae · Harmless
The plantain with a white woolly spike that looks like a hare's foot stuck on a stalk. It fills southern verges and dry fields in spring, and is among the most photographed plants nobody can name.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside · Dunes and sand
Also known ashare's foot plantain
How to tell it
A dense oval spike covered in silky white hairs that give it the look of animal fur. Narrow leaves in a rosette, with parallel veins like all plantains. A grooved hairy stalk.
What it is confused with
Ribwort plantain
Plantago lanceolata
The spike decides: dark and nearly hairless on common ribwort, white and woolly here.
Open sheet →What it is for
No relevant food use. The seeds of several plantains are mucilaginous and were used as a mild laxative, the use behind its Spanish name.