Description: Erect annuals to perennial herbs; stems with spiny wings; hairs multicellular or cobwebby.
Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, toothed to deeply pinnatisect, spines on lobe apices.
Heads terminal, solitary, or in dense clusters and sessile; heads cylindrical to hemispherical; involucral bracts many-seriate, unequal, rigid and spine-tipped; receptacle flat, densely hairy. Florets all tubular, bisexual, fertile, 5-lobed, purple to pink.
Achenes ovoid, striate, glabrous; pappus of numerous simple bristles in several rows, basally united into a ring.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 100 species, Europe & Asia. Australia: 4 species (naturalized), all States except N.T.
The record of C. macrocephalus is not substantiated.
Text by L. Murray
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Flower heads hemispherical, 2–5 cm diam.; leaves concolorous, sparsely hairy on both surfaces | Carduus nutans |
| Flower heads cylindrical, c. 1 cm diam.; leaves green and pubescent above, white and cobwebby below | 2 |
| 2 | Flower heads on short terete peduncles; wings on stems more or less discontinuous and broken into spiny lobes to 5 mm wide | Carduus pycnocephalus |
| Flower heads sessile; wings on stems continuous with spiny lobes to 10 mm wide
Back to 1 | Carduus tenuiflorus |
|
