Musk thistle

Carduus nutans

Description 3

Asteraceae | musk thistle/nodding thistle/bristle thistle
Nodding, dark pink to rose-purple (rarely white), thistle-like, rayless flower heads along a long stalk at end of main stem and its branches; stem sometimes with a cobweb-like covering.

Habitat: waste places and fields

Flowers: head 1.5 - 2.5" wide; bracts broad, pointed, purple, outer ones curving outward.

Leaves: to 10" long, lanceolate, deeply lobed, very spiny, with bases extending up and down stem as prickly wings.

Fruit: seed-like, with long, white, minutely barbed bristles.

Thieret, J. W., Niering, W. A., & Olmstead, N. C. (2001). National Audubon Society field guide to North American wildflowers: eastern region (Chanticleer Press ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) floracliff, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), uploaded by floracliff
  2. (c) Carolannie--slow return, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolannie/2615015700/
  3. (c) floracliff, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)

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