Roadsides, railroads, fields, thickets, fencerows, farmyards, around old buildings, and disturbed sites everywhere (e.g., vacant lots, dumps, filled land); trails and clearings in upland forests and cedar swamps; river banks and other moist disturbed sites. First collected as long ago as 1838 in Berrien Co., burdock is under-represented in herbaria; it doubtless occurs in every county in Michigan.