Cirsium neomexicanum

Desert thistle

Family: Asteraceae · Type: biennial · Native

Desert thistle is a California native biennial found in eastern Mojave Desert and northwestern Sonoran Desert regions in canyons, slopes, and roadsides at elevations of 800 to 2,100 meters. Flowering from April to May, this plant produces white to pale lavender or pink flowers in heads 2.5 to 5 centimeters wide, forming open, flat-topped clusters. Growing 40 to 290 centimeters tall with a single stem and a few ascending branches, it is covered in white cobwebby tomentose hairs. Its large lower leaves are oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, persistently gray-tomentose, with rigidly spreading lobes and main spines 5 to 15 millimeters long. The fruit is 5 to 6 millimeters long with a pappus 15 to 20 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Canyons, slopes, roadsides

Bloom period: Apr-May

Elevation: 800-2100 m

Bioregions: e DMoj, nw DSon

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