Description: A very common and variable species of a wide variety of habitats, often on bare ground. The leaf is proportionately much broader than any other Irish species.

Like all native Irish plantains, the flowers are wind-pollinated and produced in tight spikes on the ends of long scapes. The spike of P. major is long and narrow and somewhat resembles a rat’s tail. The plant is at its most attractive at the stage when the pollen is produced, when the yellow anthers hang out from the flowers on the ends of their long filaments, but otherwise the flower and fruit spike is drab and uninteresting-looking.

All names: Plantago major L.

Distribution Map from NBN: Plantago major at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Plantago major at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.