Vern.: Kashmir: Gul.-Isafgol; N.W.F.P.: Ghuzhbe; Punjab: Gaz pipal. (Fruits); Baluchistan: Bartung; (Seeds:) Kahri Gosh; English: Nipple Grass, Waybread; Great plantain.
Perennial acaulescent herbs, variable with short stout, erect, truncate, rootstocks and numerous adventitious roots. Leaves in rosettes, spirally arranged, petiolate, sometimes not clearly distinguished into petiole and lamina; lamina ovate elliptic or rarely rotundate (1-) 10-20 (-30) cm long, (1-) 4-9 (-17) cm broad, rounded at apex, entire, subentire or sinuately dentate, 3-9 nerved, nerves divergent at the base, bases tapering and decurrent into long sheathing petioles usually equalling the lamina. Scapes many, 13-15 (-70) cm long, arched, erect, glabrous to slightly pilose. Spikes dense or lax, slender, narrow-cylindric, 5-15 cm long. Bracts equalling or shorter than the calyx, ovate-oblong, ± acute, brownish with a brown keel, margins scarious. Calyx 3 mm long, glabrous; sepals broadly elliptic, oblong to rounded obtuse or subacute, obtusely keeled, margins broadly scarious. Corolla greenish or yellowish white, 2-4 mm long, glabrous, lobes elliptic- ovate to narrowly triangular, 1-1.15 mm long, obtuse or acute, reflexed. Anthers at first lilac, later whitish or yellowish. Capsule 2-3 mm long, globose or subconic, glabrous. Seeds minute, 6-10 (-34), angulate, dull black, rugulose, 1-1.7 mm long, 0.8 mm broad.
Fl.Per: Aug.-Sept.
Type: “Hab. in Europe ad vias” Perhaps Sweden, Specimen 144.1 (LINN lecto vide Verdcourt, Fl. Trop. East Africa Plantag. 2: 1971).
Distribution: Throughout Europe, northern and central Asia, introduced all over the world.
Leaves are cooling, alternative and diuretic.
