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woolly distaff thistle
Carthamus lanatus
Carthamus lanatus is a species of thistle known as woolly distaff thistle, downy safflower or saffron thistle. It is closely related to safflower, which is in the same genus. This annual plant is a native of the Mediterranean Basin, but it is familiar in other places where it was introduced and has become a noxious weed, such as in parts of North America and southern Australia with similar climates. This is a spiny, glandular, woolly plant,
From the article Carthamus lanatus on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
This is a spiny, glandular, woolly plant, which often seems to be covered in spiders' webs, due to its fine tangled fibers. It has a pale stem which may reach a meter in height, and rigid, pointed, very spiny leaves. The flower head has many long, sharp phyllaries that can be up to several centimeters long, and often bend backwards (recurved). The disc florets are bright yellow. One plant can produce many stems which mat together due to their spininess and form a small thicket. The fruit is an achene about half a centimeter long with many rigid pappus scales.
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
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Every page naming Carthamus lanatus 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 64232.