Flora of North America species comparison

± erect, simple or branched, (leafy), stout.

armed with spines 1–3 cm or unarmed or nearly so in some cultivated forms.

basal and cauline;

petiolate (basal and proximal cauline) or sessile (distal cauline);

blade margins 1–3-pinnately lobed or divided, sometimes essentially compound, spineless or with slender to very stout marginal spines, cauline progressively smaller and less divided distally, distalmost bractlike, abaxial faces pilose to densely gray-tomentose, adaxial glabrous or thinly tomentose, sometimes glandular.

hemispheric or ovoid, sometimes constricted distally, 5–15 cm diam.

concave to flat or convex, epaleate, densely long-bristly.

many;

corollas white, blue, or purple, tubes very slender, throats abruptly expanded, cylindric, lobes linear;

anther bases long-sagittate, fringed, apical appendages oblong;

style branches: fused portions long, cylindric, minutely papillate, distinct portions minute.

many in 5–8+ series, unequal;

outer lanceolate to broadly ovate, leathery, margins entire, with appressed bases and spreading apical appendages, acute to broadly obtuse or truncate, spine-tipped or spineless;

inner scarious.

discoid, borne singly or in few-headed, terminal, cymiform arrays.

± cylindric to obpyramidal, ± 4-angled, finely ribbed, sometimes ± flattened, glabrous, apices truncate, smooth, attachment scars basal;

pappi falling in rings of many (white or brownish), stiff bristles in 3–7 series, connate at bases, plumose proximally, often merely barbed distally.

phyllaries acuminate at apex with point 22–38 mm and spine tip 6–9 mm, or in some cultivated forms broadly obtuse to truncate and mucronate with or without spine tip 1–2 mm, distal margins with or without indistinct yellowish margins.

= 34.

= 34.