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
• Petasites kablikianus
• Petasites paradoxus
• Petasites radiatus
• Petasites sagittatus
• Petasites sibiricus
• Petasites spurius
• Petasites tatewakianus
• Petasites tricholobus

Hybrids

• Petasites x vitifolius

References

• Flora Europaea: Petasites species list and distributions
• eFloras search results: Petasites

Asteraceae

Devětsil | Hestehov | Pestwurz | Petasites | Pétasite | Šaukštis | Hoefblad | フキ