What is the Scientific Name For Burrs? and Artemisia ludoviciana inflorescence

What is the Scientific Name For Burrs?

Like, those Velcro-like weeds....

HELPP!


inflorescence best answer:

Answer by Photosynthetic
Do you mean the weed itself, or just the part that sticks to hair & clothing?

If you just mean the small sticky bit, the scientific name for a burr is "burr". I kid you not. To be more specific, a burr is any type of seed or dry fruit (seedpod) that's covered in hooked spines. (I use the botanical definition of fruit here -- basically, anything that develops from a plant's ripened ovary. This includes things like dry seedpods, husk-on coconuts, olives, and cucumbers.) The spines attach themselves to passing animals' fur (or people's clothes, leg hair, etc.), letting the seed hitch a ride away from the parent plant. Thus the plants disperse their seeds. Burrs may be various types of fruit underneath their spines: achenes (dry fruits consisting of little more than a tough extra coating over the seed) are most common.

If you mean the weed, it could be any of a number of species. Cockleburs (Xanthium spp.) and burdock (Arctium spp.) produce large numbers of spiny fruits that stick, notoriously, to just about anything furry. Teasel (Dipsacus spp.) produces large, spiny inflorescences (flowerheads) that fill after flowering with large numbers of burrs. Cleavers (Galium spp.) produces small, spherical burrs covered with the same Velcro-like hooks as the rest of the plant.

inflorescence

Artemisia ludoviciana inflorescence


The small flowering heads are scattered only individual branches, most of which are subtended by a broad leaf.

---

Orignal From: What is the Scientific Name For Burrs? and Artemisia ludoviciana inflorescence