Scolymus hispanicusL.

Spanish oyster thistlecommon golden thistlecommon goldenthistle

WFO wfo-0000022425 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. a Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205788925
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. b Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205531587
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by Quentin Groom
fig. c Quentin Groom, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198342422
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by scolym
fig. d scolym, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195906904
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁
fig. e WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172151866
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by ARBA Tres Cantos
fig. f ARBA Tres Cantos, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171013208
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by ARBA Tres Cantos
fig. g ARBA Tres Cantos, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171013059
Scolymus hispanicus, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. h Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160699670

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 Scolymus hispanicus is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaEgyptLibyaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaBulgariaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine AzoresCanary Is.BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Scolymus hispanicus, 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
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

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 958 in flower of 1,074 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Scolymus hispanicus 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. 958 of 1,074 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 9 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.

  • Myscolus microcephalus Cass.
  • Scolymus aggregatus Ruch.
  • Scolymus congestus Lam.
  • Scolymus gymnospermus Gaertn.
  • Scolymus hispanicus var. aggregatus (Ruch.) F.M.Vázquez
  • Scolymus hispanicus var. aurantiacus Maire
  • Scolymus perennis Gerard
  • Scolymus theophrasti Bubani
  • Scolymus vivax Sauvages ex DC.

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.