Carduus nutans

Musk thistle

Family: Asteraceae · Type: biennial · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Musk thistle is a naturalized biennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Sierra Nevada, southern California coastal areas, San Bernardino Mountains, Modoc Plateau, and Mojave Desert in roadsides, pastures, and disturbed areas at elevations of 100 to 2,100 meters. Flowering from June to July, this thistle produces distinctive purple flowers in large nodding heads up to 7 centimeters in diameter. Growing 40 to 150 centimeters tall with narrowly spiny-winged stems that are glabrous to woolly, it forms impressive clusters of dramatic flower heads. Its basal leaves are large, 10 to 40 centimeters long, with 1 to 2 pinnately lobed segments that are deeply cut and spiny. The fruit is small, 4 to 5 millimeters long, with a golden to brown color and a pappus 13 to 25 millimeters long.

Habitat: Roadsides, pastures, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Jun-Jul

Elevation: 100-2100 m

Bioregions: KR, CaR, n SNH, SCo, SnBr, MP, DMoj

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.