My dog is coming home from walks with the sticky burrs of this plant tangled up in her ears lately. You can understand how it came to be the inspiration for Velcro! A Swiss inventor, George de Mestral, studied the hooked spikes on the burrs after his dog became entangled with it in the 1940s, and realised the same principle could be adopted to join materials together.
It grows plentifully round here but I don't see anyone digging it up to harvest the roots which are perfectly edible! They are related to artichokes and apparently taste a bit like sweet potatoes or parsnips. It's very popular in Asia as a root food and particularly in Japanese cooking where it is referred to as "gobo"
Wow, great capture and fascinating description - I had no idea. This project is about so much more............I just love it, thank you for sharing Julienne!
Great capture you can see why they attach themselves to everything with those little hooks. I never know you could eat the root. interesting information.
