A friend picked up two of these while hiking in the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula here in the Pacific Northwest. I'd like to know what plant it is so that I can learn about it's paarticulars. TIA drcarl
Presumably ignorance of its real identity. Rattlesnake Plantain is a species of Plantago, though it isn't one I'm familiar with.
Presumably the markings on the leaves resemble those of a rattlesnake? This plant does not bloom every year and you will usually only see the leaves growing close to the ground.
If you gently rub a leaf between your fingers, you can separate each side, blow into the hole at the base, and inflate the entire leaf like a balloon. This concludes today's lesson in useless ethnobotany. Works as cheap trailside magic, however.
Excellent! Thank you! Besides doing a just for fun web search for images, I found other sites with more information than you would ever want to know about this plant. Here's one: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/forb/gooobl/all.html The Web: amazing. Gotta love it. Thanks again, drcarl
