Mercury Goosefoot (_C. bonus-henricus_) is a perennial with a thick fleshy rootstock, and erect channelled stems from one to three feet in height. The leaves are large, dark green, and of the shape that botanists describe as “hastate,” that is, like the head of an ancient halberd. These leaves are somewhat succulent, and in some places are used as a substitute for spinach. The ovary when ripe becomes what is technically known as a _utricle_, a thin loose case containing a single seed. In this species the seed is black, marked with small punctures. Flowers May to August.
All the other British species are annuals, and among them may be noted the Stinking Goosefoot (_C. vulvaria_), with spreading stems, small, greasy, mealy leaves, grey-green, and with an odour like rotten fish. Many-seeded Goosefoot (_C. polyspermum_), with several spreading branches, ovate leaves and many minute, rough, dark-brown seeds. White Goosefoot (_C. album_), leaves ovate, covered with a white mealy substance, upper portions _toothed_, sepals keeled, seed dark, shining, very minutely dotted. Red Goosefoot (_C. rubrum_), with erect, frequently red, stems, smooth and shining, leaves variable in form, and the character of the margin, sometimes toothed, sometimes entire, sepals not keeled. The name is from two Greek words, signifying Goosefoot, in reference to the shape of the leaves in some species.
The Burdock is a plant well-known to artists and boys; the former being interested in it as a fine foreground plant, the latter on account of its hooked bracts, which make the fruit-head an admirable instrument of torture, or an ornament for decorating some other person’s clothes. In its young state the plant is suggestive of the Butterbur, the fine bold lower leaves having a densely cottony underside as in that plant. But there the similarity ends, for in Butterbur there is no rising stem, whereas in Burdock this ordinarily reaches a stature of three or four feet. We encountered a fine specimen near Chessington, Surrey, in June, 1894, that had reached the height of seven feet three inches, and as it had only just commenced flowering it would probably put on a few additional inches before its growth ceased. The stem is stout, the leaves alternate, heart-shaped, thick. The flowers are in dense heads, like a thistle, but without any spreading rays. The involucre globose, of many leathery bracts ending in long stiff hooks, by means of which the ripe heads become firmly attached to the coats of animals, and the seeds are thus carried far and wide. Corollas, five-lobed, purple. Common in all waste places. Flowering from June to September. According to Hooker this is the only British species, but the “splitters” have made four or more species out of it.