Cirsium vulgare (spear thistle) is a species of the genus Cirsium, native throughout most of Europe (north to 66°N, locally 68°N),Western Asia (east to the Yenisei Valley), and northwestern Africa (Atlas Mountains). It is also naturalised in North America,Africa, and Australia and is as an invasive weed in some areas. It is the national flower of Scotland.It is a tall biennial or short-lived monocarpic thistle, forming a rosette of leaves and a taproot up to 70 cm long in the first year, and a flowering stem 1–1.5 m tall in the second (rarely third or fourth) year. The stem is winged, with numerous longitudinal spine-tipped wings along its full length. The leaves are stoutly spined, grey-green, deeply lobed; the basal leaves up to 15–25 cm long, with smaller leaves on the upper part of the flower stem; the leaf lobes are spear-shaped (from which the English name derives). The inflorescence is 2.5–5 cm diameter, pink-purple, with all the floretsof similar form (no division into disc and ray florets). The seeds are 5 mm long, with a downypappus, which assists in wind dispersal. As in other species of Cirsium (but unlike species in the related genus Carduus), the pappus hairs are feathery with fine side hairs. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photos Prodromos,8/7/2015 by George Konstantinou
No comments:
Post a Comment