The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Xanthium spinosum
Also called Spiny clotbur, Spiny cockleburr, Spiny cockelbur, Spiny clotburr, Spiny burrweed, Bathurst Burr, Bathurst Bur
Spiny cocklebur is an annual weed in the daisy family, growing up to about 1 metre tall with sharp three-pronged spines along its stems. It is a noxious weed in disturbed land, so it is not grown as a garden plant.
Xanthium spinosum (also known as Acanthoxanthium spinosum) is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by many common names, including spiny cocklebur, prickly burweed and Bathurst burr. This species is part of the genus Xanthium that encompasses 25 different species of flowering plants of the daisy family, Asteraceae, and sunflower tribe.
It is known worldwide as a noxious weed that grows in many types of disturbed habitats such as pastures, crops, waterways, grasslands, flood plains, waste areas, and sometimes tropical and arid environments. Its original native range is not known but it may have come from South America, possibly from Chile. The plant is found in various regions across the world including Canada, the US, Central America, parts of Africa and the Middle East, China, Russia and Australia.
Xanthium spinosum, as well as others within the genus, are used in many traditional medicinal treatments. The chloroform extracts found in the plant are used to treat numerous ailments such as hydrophobia, rabies, fevers, diarrhea, and cancer. In Chinese medicinal practices, the methanol extracts found in the leaves and fruits are used to treat inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. This species can also be toxic to humans, as it produces toxins that cause nephrotoxic effects, causing damage to the kidneys.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Xanthium spinosum 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.
