A branching plant, from two to six feet tall, very leafy below, with very dark bluish-green leaves, with more or less woolly down on the upper side and pale with matted down on the under side. The flower-heads are nearly three inches across, with cream-white or rarely purple flowers, and the bracts are caught together with silky, cobwebby down. This is common in the Sierra Nevada.

Thistles. Carduus Californicus. C .candadissimus. SUNFLOWER FAMILY. Compositae.