Circium ochrocentum, Gray (Carduus ochrocentrus, Greene)

Native. Biennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: May to September.

Seed-time: July to October.

Range: Nebraska to Nevada, Arizona, and Texas.

Habitat: Plains and prairies.

Fig. 355. - Pasture or Fragrant Thistle (Circium pumilum). X 1/4.

2l Stem two to six feet tall, stout, densely white-woolly, leafy to the top. Leaves oblong lance-shaped in outline but deeply pin-natifid into triangular or lance-shaped segments, armed with long, stiff, yellow spines, white-woolly on the under side, sessile or slightly clasping, the lowest with short, margined petioles. Heads solitary, terminal, about two inches broad, the outer bracts of the involucre lance-shaped and tipped with stout, yellow spines about as long as themselves, the inner ones long-pointed but unarmed; flowers light purple.

Another Thistle of the plains, much resembling this one in its dense white-woolliness but smaller and less fiercely armed, is the Wavy-leaved Thistle (Circium undulatum, Spreng), which has a wider range, extending to the Northwest Territory.

Means of control the same as for C. lanceolatum.