3. Italian Thistle or Slender Flowered Thistle
Italian Thistle (Carduus pycnocephalus, Carduus tenuiflorus)
- Blooms May to June
- Flowers are purplish to pinkish in cylindrical heads, either solitary or in clusters
- Grows 1 to 4 feet tall
- Stems have spiny wings
- Leaves deeply cut into 2 to 5 pairs of lobes, have white spots and undersurface slightly woolly
Top photo by Mitch Bixby
Bottom photo from "Weeds of the West" - Western Society of Weed Science, 1991