Burdock Root

Our organic burdock root is cultivated with great care in the Pacific Northwest. Arctium lappa has a long tradition of use in western herbalism as well as throughout the Far East. This versatile root has a myriad of internal uses and has been used as a food plant in Eastern cuisine.

Burdock has been an important botanical in Western folk herbalism and traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, primarily valued for its cleansing and skin smoothing properties. The entire plant is edible and is a popular vegetable in Asia, particularly in Japan. More recently, burdock has been an ingredient in hair tonics and in cosmetics for mature skin.

A biennal member of the Asteraceace family, with bright pink-red to purple thistle-like flowers on long stalks, and oblong to cordate, huge hairy leaves that is native to Europe and Asia, and now naturalized in North America and Australia. This plant can grow to a very robust height, reaching up to 9 feet, and its aromatic "carrot-like" taproot can grow as much as 3 feet deep into the ground (making them difficult to harvest). It is naturalized and abundant in northern U.S and Europe and is considered a weed in such areas.

The generic name arctium is derived from the Greek word for bear or arktos and the species name, lappa, is from the Latin word lappare which means "to seize." The fruit (bur) looks rough and hairy resembling a big, fuzzy bear and will grab on to anything in the vicinity in order to spread its seed, hence the name. Its common name is derived from the French word bourre referring to a tangle of wool (often entangled with burs) and the German "dock" referring to large leaves. Various species, such as A. minus or A. tomentosum, may be used interchangeably. However, burdock is often confused with cocklebur or Xanthium spp. that has entirely different properties.