Cirsium palustre(L.) Scop.

Marsh Thistlemarsh thistle

WFO wfo-0000043760 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cirsium palustre, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. a Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205229133
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. b Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204829319
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. c Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204829245
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Lena Perova
fig. d Lena Perova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203557315
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. e Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203219475
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Josep Gesti
fig. f Josep Gesti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 203253786
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Anne Thomson
fig. g Anne Thomson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203681144
Cirsium palustre, photographed by Bee Together
fig. h Bee Together, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202913255

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.

Native range 33 botanical countries

Regions where Cirsium palustre is native: Altay, Kazakhstan, West Siberia, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AltayKazakhstanWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryIrelandItalyNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine Føroyar
Native distribution of Cirsium palustre, 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
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Kazakhstan KAZ
West Siberia WSB

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 1,124 in flower of 1,494 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Cirsium palustre 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. 1,124 of 1,494 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.

Also published as 22 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 chailletii Godr.
  • Carduus laciniatus Lam.
  • Carduus palustris L.
  • Cirsium chailletii Gaudin
  • Cirsium forsteri Loudon
  • Cirsium horridum (Posp.) Trotter
  • Cirsium kochianum Loehr
  • Cirsium laciniatum Doell ex Nyman
  • Cirsium lacteum Schleich. ex W.Koch
  • Cirsium lacteum Schleich.
  • Cirsium palatinum Sch.Bip. ex Nyman
  • Cirsium palustre f. horridum Posp.
  • Cirsium palustre f. palustre
  • Cirsium palustre subsp. palustre
  • Cirsium palustriforme Dalla Torre & Sarnth.
  • Cirsium parviflorum Lange ex Nyman
  • Cirsium pseudopalustre Schur
  • Cirsium semidecurrens Klett & Richt.
  • Cnicus forsteri Sm.
  • Cnicus lacteus Schleich.
  • Cnicus palustris (L.) Willd.
  • Cynara palustris (L.) Stokes

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.