Common name:
Spear thistle
Family:
Scientific name:
Cirsium vulgare
Main flower color:
Range:
All across the UK
Height:
Up to 100 cm
Habitat:
Waste ground, grassland, roadsides, open woodland, cultivated fields
Flowers:
Solitary flowerheads, up to 4 cm in diameter, of several hundred pink/purple disc florets above an egg-shaped involucre densely covered with spreading, narrow, green, cottony-hairy bracts, topped by yellowish spines, at the tip of the branched, spiny, hairy, winged stem
Leaves:
Spear-shaped; divided into several narrow, spine-tipped lobes, the terminal one much longer than the others. Smaller spines line the margins
Season:
June to September
Rarity:
★★★★★
