Okay, what the heck is this?

[conuly]

I realized after I took a picture that it *can't* be plantago anything - the bottom of the leaves is right, the roots are right... but instead of the veins in the leaves going straight up and down, they kinda meander. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.



The shoe is a toddler size eight, it's Evangeline's. The leaf is bigger than my shoes (size eleven), and can in fact be used as a light sheet for a small child... say Evangeline sized. She's average for a two year old in her height.



You can see how the leaf is big enough to hold over your head as an umbrella.

Honestly, I don't normally see big-leafed plants like that, and what I do see are carefully potted plants that are tended, you wouldn't think they're natural to our climate up here! But this year I see these everywhere, and in untended gardens, too.

Long-ass roots, as I said.

Edit: The nice people in gardening are saying it's burdock, which seems right. If you can say otherwise, though, do tell me.

Comments

[ancarett]

Looks a bit like rhubarb leaf to me -- what does the stem look like? Thick and with a reddish tint.

If it's rhubarb, make sure no one eats the leaves. Poisonous!

[conuly]

Rhubarb has huge enormous leaves? I never knew! I did know the leaves are poison, though - my mother routinely goes into a rant about the time she was in a grocery store and saw them selling "rhubarb stems in a bed of its own leaves" because you just *know* somebody was going to ignorantly kill themselves.

Not much of a stem, though. There's a bit of pink at the very bottom, but there isn't really a stem to speak of - the leaves mostly come from the root directly.

[conuly]

Then again, googling pictures of rhubarb leaves... huh.

It *might* be?

[ancarett]

I've seen rhubarb leaves get as long as my arm from elbow to tip of finger (and that was from a patch that was harvested regularly). The stalks don't have to be red -- there are some green varieties of rhubarb. But if the stalks aren't terribly thick or have branching of any sort, it's probably not rhubarb.

I'll forward the leaf picture to my sister and see if she can identify it -- she's got a Ph.D. in horticulture and works in extension.

[conuly]

Well, over in gardening they think it's burdock, and that makes sense to me. If she says otherwise, though, tell me.

[ancarett]

Burdock? Could be from the leaf size. Is the underside of the leaf downy or woolly? That and some stems coming up from the centre (for the thistle) would be strong signs.

If I recall correctly, burdock leaves can cause skin rash (annoying, not serious). I fell into a patch and the thistles weren't as bad as the rash. Ugh.