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AKA St. Mary's Thistle, Blessed Thistle, Milk Thistle Description
Annual or biennial plants. Stem is tall, branched and furrowed but not spiny.. alternate leaves are waxy-lobed, toothed and thorny, as in with histle. Lower leaves are cauline (attached to the stem without petiole). The upper leaves have a clasping base. They have large, disc-shaped pink-to-purple, rarely white, solitary flower heads at the end of the stem. The flowers consist of tubular florets. The phyllaries under the flowers occur in many rows, with the outer row with spine-tipped lobes and apical spines. The fruit is a black achene with a white pappus.
8 - 20 cm
