Burdock
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Burdock. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a despised weed. It is a member of the composite family, and is related to the thistles. The flowers and seeds are inclosed in a bur-like involucre, whence, no doubt, the name. The scales of the bur-like head are armed with curved prickles, by means of which children at play hook burdock heads together to form necklaces. "Burdocks are great travelers." The burs fasten themselves into the wool, fur, and hair of animals and are distributed. A cow's tail is not infrequently matted with such burs, and the same may be said of a sheep's fleece. Small birds are sometimes entangled by the strongly hooked burs. Instances are on record of a humming bird and of a goldfinch coming to an untimely end in this way. The Japanese are said to have improved the burdock by cultivation until its root is a prized garden vegetable. Burdock root is an old-fashioned remedy used to "cleanse the system,"--a rival of sarsaparilla. About 50,000 pounds of Belgian burdock root are imported yearly by American druggists. The fresh leaves, also, make a grateful, cooling poultice for certain swellings and ulcers. 2026 Editor's Note: A walk with a dog and a burdock changed manufacturing. In 1941 the Swiss engineer George de Mestral, picking burs out of his dog's coat, examined their hooks under a microscope and spent years reproducing them in nylon — the result was Velcro , and the founding example of what is now called biomimicry. (Ed: BR 2026-07-17)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the English name of arctium, a genus of plants belonging to the order asteraceæ (composites), and the sub-order tubuliflora. The common burdock, A. lappa, is well known.