Cirsium
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
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Family
Asteraceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Erect, branched or simple, prickly herbs, some species acaulescent, with alternate or basal, sinuate-dentate lobed or pinnatifid, usually very spiny leaves, sometimes decurrent, and large many-flowered, solitary or clustered, discoid heads of purple, yellow or white, tubular, perfect and fertile, or rarely dioecious flowers. Involucre ovoid or globose, its bracts prickle-tipped or unarmed, imbricated in many series. Receptacle flat or convex, bristly. Corolla tube slender, the limb deeply 5-cleft. Filaments pilose, or rarely glabrous. Anthers sagittate at the base. Style-branches short or elongated, obtuse. Achenes obovate or oblong, compressed or obtusely 4-angled, glabrous, smooth or ribbed. Pappus of several series of slender, plumose, bristles, connate at the base. [Greek, the thistle was used as a remedy for swollen veins.] Over 200 species, widely distributed in the northern hemisphere. Type species: Carduus heterophyllus L.