Alternate name: Great Plantain, Broadleaf Plantain

Family: Plantaginaceae, Plantain view all from this family

Description Small flowers are massed in a narrow, cylindrical, greenish-white spike, rising from a set of broad, strongly ribbed basal leaves.
Flowers: 1/12" (2 mm) long; with 4-lobed corolla; stamens 4; pistil 1; bracts present beneath flowers.
Leaves: to 6" (15 cm) long and 4" (10 cm) wide, ovate to elliptic.
Fruit: small, 12-18-seeded capsule, splitting open around the middle.
Height: 6-18" (15-45 cm).

Flower June-October.

Habitat Waste places, fields, roadsides.

Range Throughout North America, except parts of far north.

Discussion This broad-leaved Plantain is considered a weed in lawns and gardens. The equally common Pale Plantain (P. rugelii), can usually be distinguished by the purple bases of its leaf stalks. Heart-leaved or Water Plantain (P. cordata) another broad-leaved species, occurs in streams from New York south to North Carolina, west to Alabama and Louisiana, and north to Wisconsin and Ontario. It can be distinguished from other species by its hollow stem.