Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Print Fact Sheet

Plantago major

Common name

Large plantain, Greater Plantain

Family

Plantaginaceae

Where found

Moist pasture and moist, often disturbed sites including along streams and seepage lines. Widespread.

Notes

Introduced short lived perennial herb with a mostly adventitious root system. Flower stalks to 0.4 m high, hairy with short hairs. Leaves in a basal rosette, mostly 4-22 cm long, 20-120 mm wide, hairy to hairless, with 5-7 longitudinal veins, margins entire or with a few blunt teeth, tips pointed to rounded. Leaf stalks about the same length as the leaf blades, and easily differentiated from them. Flowers tubular, the tube 2–2.5 mm long, with 4 lobes 1.5–2 mm long, spreading or turned down. Sepals 2-2.5 mm long. Sepal-like bracts just beneath the flowers 2.5–3 mm long. Flowers in cylindrical spikes about 80-250 mm long, dense except near the base. Flowers Spring to Autumn.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Plantago~major (accessed 1 February, 2021)