Butterbur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| iButterbur | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Petasites hybridus
|
||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
About 15-20 species; see text |
The plants commonly referred to as Butterbur are found in the daisy family Asteraceae in the genus Petasites. They are mostly quite robust plants with thick, creeping underground rhizomes and large Rhubarb-like leaves during the growing season. Another common name for many species of this genus is Sweet Coltsfoot.
The short spikes of flowers are produced just before these leaves in Spring, emerging with only a few elongated basal bracts and are usually green, flesh coloured or dull white depending on species.
Petasites is very closely related to the genus Tussilago (Coltsfoot), and also related to the huge genus Senecio.
- Selected species
- Petasites albus White Butterbur
- Petasites amplus
- Petasites doerfleri
- Petasites formosanus
- Petasites fragrans Winter Heliotrope
- Petasites frigidus (syn. P. speciosa) Arctic Butterbur or Arctic Sweet Coltsfoot
- Petasites hybridus Common Butterbur
- Petasites japonicus Giant Butterbur, or Fuki
- Petasites kablikianus
- Petasites paradoxus
- Petasites radiatus
- Petasites sagittatus
- Petasites sibiricus
- Petasites spurius
- Petasites tatewakianus
- Petasites tricholobus
- Hybrids
- Petasites x vitifolius
