Tall biennial with spiny-winged, cottony stems and big purple heads on spine-tipped cups; each leaf ends in a long spear
Spear thistle - Cirsium vulgare.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Spear thistle
Native · biennial, flowers July to October · pastures, verges, field edges
Cirsium vulgare — Asteraceae
Spear thistle is the big, solitary, fiercely prickly biennial of pastures and roadsides, with large purple heads over spiny green bracts like spear-points. It is one of Britain's five 'injurious weeds' and one of the candidates for the thistle of Scotland's national emblem. Its seeds feed goldfinches and its flowers feed butterflies.
How to spot them
- ▸Large purple heads, 3-5 cm, with pink florets and spine-tipped bracts forming a ball-shaped cup, solitary or in few
- ▸Stems have broad, spiny wings and are cottony; up to 1 m tall
- ▸Grey-green leaves deeply cut and armed with long stiff spines, bristly on top
- ▸A rosette in the first year; a tall flowering stem in the second
- ▸Compare: creeping thistle has unwinged stems and small pale heads; marsh thistle has taller, narrower plants in damp ground with clustered darker heads; cotton thistle is silvery and huge
How to know it
It is one of the plants proposed as the original for Scotland's national emblem, along with cotton and musk thistles
Spear thistle - Wildlife Trusts say 'possibly the inspiration'.
Named in an Act of 1959 as an injurious weed, one of five alongside common ragwort, curled dock, broad-leaved dock and a creeping relative
Spear thistle - Weeds Act 1959.
Its seeds attract goldfinches, and the flowers provide nectar for butterflies such as the small copper
Spear thistle - Wildlife Trusts.
Told from the patch-forming relative with small lilac heads by having a solitary, large head and wings of spines along the stem
Spear thistle (creeping thistle is the look-alike).
Quick-fire facts
- •Wildlife Trusts: flowers July to October; up to 1 m; seeds attract goldfinches; flowers feed butterflies such as the small copper
- •One of five injurious weeds under the Weeds Act 1959
- •The species behind the emblem of Scotland is uncertain: spear, cotton (Onopordum acanthium), musk and others have been proposed
- •Scotland's national motto, 'nemo me impune lacessit', means 'no one provokes me with impunity'
- •A biennial: rosette in the first year, flowering and dying in the second
- •A common thistle of pastures and verges; grazing animals avoid the spiny leaves
- •Seeds are eaten by goldfinches and carried on a feathery pappus
- •The Latin vulgare means 'common'
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Spear thistle
- legislation.gov.uk — Weeds Act 1959