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Helminthotheca echioides
Also called Ox Tongue, Oxtongue
Bristly oxtongue is a sprawling annual or biennial weed of waste ground and farmland, native to the Mediterranean and North Africa. It is grown mainly as a wild plant rather than a garden plant, and it is easy to grow from seed in full sun.
Helminthotheca echioides, known as bristly (or prickly) oxtongue, is a sprawling annual or biennial herb native to Europe and North Africa. It was originally placed within the genus Picris but is often separated within the small genus Helminthotheca alongside a few other (mainly North African) plants which also have the distinctive outer row of bracts around the flowerheads. It is a ruderal plant, found on waste ground and agricultural soils around the world, and in some places it is considered a troublesome weed.
Helminthotheca echioides is thought to be native to North Africa and the Mediterranean Basin, where it grows in semi-arid conditions that are reproduced in the ruderal habitats associated with agriculture and the disturbed soils created by human activity throughout the world. As a result, it has spread as a weed to all the continents (except mainland Antarctica), and it is often abundant in farmland and towns.
The leaves were formerly used as a pot herb, and were "esteemed good to relax the bowels". There are also various reports of it being used as an antihelminthic treatment, although this may be due to confusion about the meaning of its name. The English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper considered "lang de boeuf" to be a good cure for melancholy (when steeped in wine), and a general alexipharmic (antidote to unspecified toxins).
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Helminthotheca echioides by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
