Xanthium strumarium L.

Common Cocklebur; Rough Cocklebur

Herb

Annual

Vascular

Common Cocklebur is a native herbaceous annual in the Sunflower family (Asteraceae). It can be found throughout Alabama. Common Cocklebur occurs along rivers and ponds, in roadside ditches, and as a weed in agricultural fields. It is an annual with a tap root. Stems are erect, 1-4 feet in height, sometimes branched, green or reddish in color, and pubescent. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, suborbicular to deltate in outline, 3-5 lobed, with toothed margins. The leaf surface is pubescent and often gland dotted. Flowers are produced in heads. The heads are in racemes or spikes in the axils of the leaves. The heads produce only disc flowers, with the lower heads pistillate and the upper staminate. The pistillate heads produce 2 flowers lacking corollas. The inner phyllaries of the pistillate heads have distinctly hooked tips and form a hard prickly “bur” when in fruit. The staminate heads are saucer shaped with 20-50 whitish disc flowers. The fruit is a black achene enclosed within the 2 chambered “bur”. The hooks of the bur attach to the fur of animals and human clothing, allowing for long distance dispersal. Common Cocklebur has been used in traditional medicine, but contains several toxic compounds that has been responsible for the deaths of people and livestock that consumed it. Common Cocklebur is also allelopathic—releasing chemicals into the soil that inhibit or kill other plants.—A. Diamond

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Not Native FAC (NWPL)

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