WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

A web of gray-woolly hairs covers the stems and prickly leaves of this 1 1/2–9-foot tall thistle. Pink, tassel-like flower heads surrounded by long, wicked spines bloom on branch tips from the upper half of the stem. Note the dense, woolly hair covering the foliage, though hairless plants may occur.

FLOWERS: March–July. Pink to lavender to white, tube-like flowers crowd the top of a shallow, rounded to bell-shaped head laced with cobwebby hair. The phyllaries at the base of the flower head are linear to tapered and tipped with 3/16–5/8-inch long (4–15 mm), stout, flat spines.

LEAVES: Alternate, both surfaces densely webbed with gray-woolly hair. Blades elliptic to lance-shaped, 2 3/8–13 3/4-inches long (6–35 cm) by 5/8–2 3/4-inches wide (1.5–7 cm), greatly reduced up the stem; margins pinnately divided (along the midrib) with lobes tipped with 3/16–5/8-inch long (5–15 mm) spines.

HABITAT: Dry, sandy rocky soils; scrub brushlands, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa pine forests.

ELEVATION: 4,300–7,750 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, NV, NM, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 12 native species of Cirsium in NM, 5 in  3 or less counties, and two introduced. Wavy-leafed Thistle, C. undulatum, has flower heads with short spines and leaves and stems without gray-woolly hairs. Yellow-spined Thistle, C. ochrocentrum, has flower heads with long, yellow spines and leaves and stems without gray-woolly hairs.

NM COUNTIES: All but the ne quarter of the state in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Quay, Rio Arriba, Roosevelt, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Valencia.