Cirsium wallichiiDC.

WFO wfo-0000124089 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Cirsium wallichii, photographed by Paulmathi Vinod
fig. a Paulmathi Vinod, CC BY 4.0 / 2011-06-04 / obs. 150898958
Cirsium wallichii, photographed by PRIYA RAUTELA
fig. b PRIYA RAUTELA, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155330756
Cirsium wallichii, photographed by PRIYA RAUTELA
fig. c PRIYA RAUTELA, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155331358

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Cirsium wallichii is native: Afghanistan, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, West Himalaya AfghanistanEast HimalayaIndiaNepalPakistanWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Cirsium wallichii, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
India IND
Nepal NEP
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE

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.

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.

  • Cirsium macracanthum Sch.Bip.
  • Cirsium nepalense DC.
  • Cirsium nepalensis DC.
  • Cirsium wallichii var. glabratum (Hook.f.) Wendelbo
  • Cirsium wallichii var. platylepis (Hook.f.) Aswal & Mehrotra
  • Cnicus argyracanthus var. nepalensis (DC.) C.B.Clarke
  • Cnicus wallichii (DC.) C.B.Clarke
  • Cnicus wallichii Hook.f.
  • Cnicus wallichii var. cernua Hook.f.
  • Cnicus wallichii var. fasciculata Hook.f.
  • Cnicus wallichii var. glabrata Hook.f.
  • Cnicus wallichii var. nepalensis (DC.) Hook.f.
  • Cnicus wallichii var. platylepis Hook.f.
  • Cnicus wallichii var. wallichii
  • Echenais ferox Edgew. ex C.B.Clarke

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. 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.