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Italian thistle
Carduus pycnocephalus
Carduus pycnocephalus, with common names including Italian thistle, Italian plumeless thistle, and Plymouth thistle, is a species of thistle. It is native to the Mediterranean region in southern Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia; Eastern Europe and the Caucasus; and the Indian subcontinent.
The plant has become an introduced species in other regions, and on other continents, often becoming a noxious weed or invasive species.
From the article Carduus pycnocephalus on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
A winter annual, Carduus pycnocephalus has stems ranging from 8 inches (20 cm) to 6.6 feet (2.0 m), glabrous to slightly wooly. The multiple stems are winged with spines. The plant grows in a rosettes of 10–14 inches (25–36 cm) in diameter, with four to ten lobed basal leaves that are 4–6 inches (10–15 cm) long. Cauline leaves are tomentose on the underside and contain spines on the lobe tips. Flower heads are 2–5 per cluster, densely matted with cobwebby hairs at the base of the phyllaries and spiny towards the tips. Corollas are pink to purple, approx. 1.0–1.4 cm (0.4–0.6 in) long, and the fruits are brown to gold, with a bristly, minutely barbed pappus.
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Carduus pycnocephalus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 52990.