Family, Composite. Color, purple. Heads, large, 1 to 2 inches broad, terminal, with a peculiarly-prickly and spiny involucre, the outer bracts of which are longer than the inner. Leaves, very prickly, running down on the stem, making it winged, deeply cut and lobed, those at base sometimes 12 inches long. Stem, coarse, cottony, or woolly, 3 to 9 feet high. July to September.

Rare and local, because, although introduced into our country, it has not yet had time to become common. Roadsides and waste places, New Jersey to Michigan and northward.