Stats

Lifespan: Perennial
Size: Small
Diet: Photosynthetic
Biome: Temperate grassland
Range: Europe and Asia
Movement: Sessile
Breeding: Seeds
Defense: Toxins
Status: Common

About

A tough rosette herb with broad ribbed leaves that hugs the ground and pushes up slender pollen-bearing spikes. Its seeds become sticky when wet, hitching rides on shoes and hooves so persistently that some Indigenous peoples named it 'white man's footprint' after settlers carried it across continents.

Life cycle

1.
seed
A dormant seed waits for water and warmth before germinating.
2.
sprout
A first shoot emerges with cotyledon leaves and a tap root reaching down.
3.
sapling
A young plant grows true leaves and a stem or trunk, putting on height each season.
4.
mature
Fully grown, flowering or fruiting at adult size.

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Taxonomy

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Plantaginaceae
Genus: Plantago
Species: Plantago major