Carduus acanthoidesL.

bristly thistleplumeless thistlespiny plumeless thistlewelted thistle

WFO wfo-0000114356 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Nash Turley
fig. a Nash Turley, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205195964
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Yurii Basov
fig. b Yurii Basov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204446606
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. c Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204130744
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. d Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202651228
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Nash Turley
fig. e Nash Turley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202774107
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. f Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202491813
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. g Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202490657
Carduus acanthoides, photographed by Андрей Козлов
fig. h Андрей Козлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199592380

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
532269
Filed as
Carduus acanthoides L.
Det. by
M. F. Johnson 1974-01-01
Collected
H. A. Allard 1938-08-21
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 44 botanical countries

Regions where Carduus acanthoides is native: Libya, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Korea, North Caucasus, Qinghai, Tibet, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Xinjiang, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine LibyaChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastInner MongoliaJapanKazakhstanKirgizstanNorth CaucasusQinghaiTibetTranscaucasusTürkiyeXinjiangPakistanWest HimalayaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Korea
Native distribution of Carduus acanthoides, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Korea KOR
North Caucasus NCS
Qinghai CHQ
Tibet CHT
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Xinjiang CHX
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL
West Himalaya WHM
Libya LBY AFRICA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 994 in flower of 1,121 examined

Peak flowering in Dec. Each bar is the share of Carduus acanthoides observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 994 of 1,121 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,955 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.2 °C -9.7 °C -0.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.7 °C 24.7 °C 28.7 °C
Annual rainfall 457 mm 604 mm 1,086 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 58 mm 103 mm 214 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,955 research-grade observations of Carduus acanthoides that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 15 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Carduus acanthoides f. acanthoides
  • Carduus acuminatus Gaud. ex Rchb.
  • Carduus camporum Boiss.
  • Carduus crispus Huds.
  • Carduus crispus var. litiginosus Gren. & Godr.
  • Carduus fortior Klokov
  • Carduus martrinii Martrin-Donos
  • Carduus medius subsp. martrinii (Martrin-Donos) Kazmi
  • Carduus murfatlarii Nyar. & Prodan
  • Carduus polyacanthus Schreb.
  • Carduus polyanthos Schreb.
  • Carduus ruderalis Tausch ex Nyman
  • Carduus sinuatus Gilib.
  • Carduus thessalus Boiss. & Heldr.
  • Carduus velebiticus Borbás

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.