Creeping thistle
Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop.
- light
- Sun–part
- water
- Medium
- tall
- 1.8 m
- wide
- —
Asteraceae
Also called Field thistle, Californian thistle, Canadian thistle, Canada thistle, Creeping Thistle
Formerly Breea arvensis, Carduus arvensis, Cephalonoplos arvensis, Cnicus arvensis, and 1 more
When it flowers
Not known yet in the tropics: too few flowering observations to read a season from.
Read from iNaturalist photographs of it in flower. A month counts at 50% of the best month's flowering share (smoothed over three months) and 10% of its flowering count, from at least 100 flowering observations in the band.
If a child, a pet or anyone may have eaten a plant, contact a doctor or vet straight away, or call the National Poisons Information Centre (AIIMS, New Delhi) on 1800 116 117, free and open 24 hours.
Something wrong with it?About it
- Grows as
- PerennialKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Climate
- TemperateKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Wild in
- Temp. Eurasia, NW. AfricaKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Light
- Full sun to part shade (3 h or more)Read from NC State Extension, one source
- Height
- 1.8 mRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Water
- Average: moist, well drainedRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Flowers
- White, pink, purpleRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Coldest it survives
- -34.4 °C (USDA zone 4a)Read from NC State Extension, one source
Not known yet: spread, heat, hottest it survives.
In other languages (12)
- root
- Canada Thistle, CIRARV, Feochadán reatha
- Catalan
- calcida
- Italian
- Cardo campestre
- German
- Acker-Kratzdistel
- Russian
- Бодяк полевой, Бодяк розовый
- Polish
- Ostrożeń polny
- French
- Cirse des champs, chardon des champs
- Finnish
- pelto-ohdake
- Portuguese
- cardo, Cardo-hemorroidal
- Czech
- pcháč oset
- Greek
- Κίρσιο το αρουραίο
- Dutch
- Akkerdistel
Where this comes from
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0 (observation counts)
- Wikidata, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0
- Kew's checklist, read 2026-10-24, CC-BY-4.0
- NC State Extension, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikimedia Commons, read 2026-10-25, CC0
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY-SA
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY-SA
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC0
- 3D model: Cirsium arvense (built for Vanagrha) by Vanagrha, own
A fact “checked by a majority of its sources” was settled by a vote of the pages it was read from, not by a person reading it; one marked “one source” rests on that page alone. Anything else not marked checked has not been checked yet. Where nothing is known, the page says so rather than guess.