burdock

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordonも終わりに近づきました。山中をさまよっていたTrishaはやっと人里に近づいて来たようでしたが、何と大きな熊に遭遇してしまいました。
Grown men would have turned and run from the Ursus americanus which lumbered out of last screen of bushes--it was a fully grown North American black bear, perhaps four hundred pounds...
There were leaves and burdocks caught in its shiny fur, and held in one hand--yes, it had a hand, the clawed rudiment of one, at least-was a branch from which most of the bark had been stripped.
"burdock" は日本特有の植物として通訳ガイドの受験勉強で覚えましたが、戦時中に英国人捕虜の食事にゴボウを使ったところ、日本人は捕虜に雑草を食べさせるなどの、国際法に違反する捕虜虐待をしているとされた逸話を聞いたこともあるので、英米人には馴染みのない野菜なので、米国の子供向の話に出てくるなどとは思いもよりませんでした。英米人はゴボウを食べないけれども名称を知っている人はいる様です。
・Collins Dictionary: a coarse weedy Eurasian plant of the genus Arctium, having large heart-shaped leaves, tiny purple flowers surrounded by hooked bristles, and burlike fruits: family Asteraceae: He gathered a handful of burdock leaves and a bundle of deadfall branches, shaving some of the latter into paper-thin kindling.
・Random House Unabridged Dictionary: a composite plant of the genus Arctium, esp. A. lappa, a coarse, broad-leaved weed bearing prickly heads of burs that stick to the clothing.
・Vocabulary.com: any of several erect biennial herbs of temperate Eurasia having stout taproots and producing burs
辞書の説明にも出てくる "bur" は以前（12/25/2010）"chestnut burr" で取り上げた言葉ですね。