An early-stage thistle plant.

In previous posts, I have shown several pictures of Nodding Thistle (Carduus nutans) flowers, so I thought it was about time I showed a photograph or two of the plant itself. All the pictures of Nodding Thistle that I have posted so far came from the plant shown in the photograph above. It was growing along a road near our house. The plant had only early-stage flowers when this photograph was taken in May. Later the plant produced mature flowers, but shortly after that the county road mowers got it. I had to use other plants to get plants with mature seeds (see the a subsequent post for these).

Prickles on a thistle plant

The photograph above shows more detail of the rather impressive prickles growing on the stem and leaves.  No wonder livestock are reluctant to graze on it!