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.
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.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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