Cirsium vulgare, Spear Thistle

Common Name: Spear Thistle

Cirsium vulgare, more commonly known as Spear Thistle, 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 1.0–1.5 m tall in the second (rarely third or fourth) year.

The stem is winged, with many 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 (hence the English name derives).

The inflorescence is 2.5–5 cm diameter, pink-purple, with all the florets of similar form (no division into disc and ray florets). The seeds are 5 mm long, with a downy pappus, which assists in wind dispersal. As in other species of Cirsium the pappus hairs are feathery with fine side hairs.

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