Definition of "burdock" [bur•dock]

• Any of several weedy, chiefly biennial plants of the genus Arctium in the composite family, having pink or purplish flower heads surrounded by prickly bracts and forming a bur in fruit. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This is particularly well reported for bats, with Hill & Smith (1984) discussing cases of bats dying after being entangled in burdock burs, after getting impaled on the spines of cacti, desert shrubs and rose thorns, and after getting strangled by Spanish moss fibres."
• ""The _Articum Lappa_, more commonly called the burdock," explained"
• "Blood-cleansing herbs such as burdock root, dandelion root, red clover flower, and nettle leaf—in any combination—given to a nursing mother or to the newborn will help clear impurities from the bloodstream, thus helping clear cradle cap."