Cotton thistle
Onopordum acanthium L.
- light
- Sun–part
- water
- Little
- tall
- 2.3 m
- wide
- 1.2 m
Asteraceae
Also called Scottish thistle, Scotch thistle, Scotch cotton thistle, Cotton Thistle
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
- BiennialKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Climate
- TemperateKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Wild in
- Europe to Xinjiang and W. Himalaya, NW. AfricaKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Light
- Full sun to part shade (3 h or more)Read from Plants for a Future, one source
- Height
- 2.3 mRead from Wikipedia and Plants for a Future, checked: the middle of what its sources sayHalfway between its 2 sources, which differ. Sources differ: Wikipedia 3–3 m; Plants for a Future 1.5–1.5 m
- Spread
- 1.2 mRead from Wikipedia and Plants for a Future, checked: the middle of what its sources sayHalfway between its 2 sources, which differ. Sources differ: Wikipedia 1.5–1.5 m; Plants for a Future 1–1 m
- Water
- Little: takes droughtRead from Wikipedia, one source
- Flowers
- Pink, purpleRead from Wikipedia, one source
- Coldest it survives
- -15 °C (USDA zone 7b)Read from Plants for a Future, one source
Not known yet: heat, hottest it survives.
In other languages (12)
- root
- ONOACA, Zéé hókanííł béí, Whosh Waa’
- French
- Onopordon faux-acanthe, Onopordon à feuilles d'acanthe, chardon aux ânes
- German
- Eselsdistel, Krebsdistel, Wolldistel
- Italian
- Acanzio, Cardo di Scozia, Cardo scozzese
- Czech
- ostropes trubil
- Danish
- Æselfoder
- Russian
- Татарник колючий
- Norwegian Bokmål
- eseltistel
- Finnish
- okakruunuohdake
- Lithuanian
- Dygliuotoji kardažolė
- Polish
- Popłoch pospolity
- Arabic
- أقسون شوكي, رأس الشيخ الشوكي, شكاعى شوكية
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
- Plants for a Future, read 2026-10-26, fact, cited
- Wikipedia, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikimedia Commons, read 2026-10-25, CC0
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC0
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- 3D model: Onopordum acanthium (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.