Marmalade and Burdock

They work well together.

I should start by apologising for blogging in the middle of the world cup final but.. I haven’t got a television set and England aren’t in it anyway (and I thought they were going to win it again 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) well, you know….

This is Milton the Marmalade Hoverfly and he is going to show you a Burdock called Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus.

The flowers resemble thistles and that is probably what’s confusing the poor Hoverflies.

In some parts of the world the tap root of Burdock is harvested as a root vegetable and I read that it is popular in Asian cuisine. Here it is used to make Dandelion and Burdock a soft drink  made from the fermented roots of the plants a bit like Ginger Beer.

It’s other claim to fame is being the inspiration for Velcro. The seed heads, called Burrs, are covered in hooks that attach themselves to passing animals as a means of dispersing the seed. A clever Swiss inventor called George de Mestral saw the potential in this and realised that as annoying as it was to have to get these burrs off his dog you could also use such a system to stick things together and he invented Velcro.

Now I am just going to bring the Hoverflies back to show you one little thing. A couple of weeks ago I posted this next picture and told you that it was a female Hoverfly (eyes wide apart)

Today’s animal is a male (eyes touching)

And that is how you tell the Hoverfly’s sex. Cool 🙂