Plantago coronopus
Encyclopedia
Plantago coronopus is a species of Plantago
sometimes grown as a leaf vegetable
. It is native to Eurasia and North Africa but it can be found elsewhere, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand as an introduced species
.
It is an annual or biennial herb producing a basal rosette of narrowly lance-shaped leaves up to 25 centimeters long. The leaves are edged with small lance-shaped lobes. The inflorescence
s grow erect to about half a meter in maximum height. They have dense spikes of flowers which sometimes curve. Each flower has four whitish lobes each measuring about a millimeter long.
Plantago
Plantago is a genus of about 200 species of small, inconspicuous plants commonly called plantains. They share this name with the very dissimilar plantain, a kind of banana. Most are herbaceous plants, though a few are subshrubs growing to 60 cm tall. The leaves are sessile, but have a narrow...
sometimes grown as a leaf vegetable
Leaf vegetable
Leaf vegetables, also called potherbs, green vegetables, greens, leafy greens or salad greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots...
. It is native to Eurasia and North Africa but it can be found elsewhere, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand as an introduced species
Introduced species
An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...
.
It is an annual or biennial herb producing a basal rosette of narrowly lance-shaped leaves up to 25 centimeters long. The leaves are edged with small lance-shaped lobes. The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...
s grow erect to about half a meter in maximum height. They have dense spikes of flowers which sometimes curve. Each flower has four whitish lobes each measuring about a millimeter long.