Centaurea benedicta

Blessed thistle

Family: Asteraceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Blessed thistle is a naturalized annual found in northwestern California, southern Sierra Nevada, Great Valley, coastal western California, southwestern California, and western Mojave Desert in roadsides and disturbed places at elevations below 1,700 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces yellow flowers in disciform heads with distinctive green or straw-colored involucres surrounded by wide, leaf-like bracts. Growing up to one meter tall with erect to wide-spreading stems that are loosely to densely covered in long, crinkled hairs and finer cobwebby hairs, it spreads widely in disturbed landscapes. Its leaves range from oblanceolate to elliptic, with basal and lower stem leaves 10 to 20 centimeters long, coarsely lobed and dentate with weakly spine-tipped edges. The fruit is straw-colored, 8 to 11 millimeters long with 20 ribs and a 10-toothed rim.

Habitat: Roadsides, disturbed places

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: < 1700 m

Bioregions: NW, SNF, s SNH, GV, CW, SW, w DMoj

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