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Purple Thistle
Cirsium horridulum
34.01, -84.58
Field Notes
Description:
All those prickles are intimidating, but when I took a second look at this thistle with its deep maroon flower and hints of the same color on its stemes and leaves, I found it unexpectedly beautiful. (I hope you do too!) This thistle is native, and while it typically gets rounded up and removed with the rest on the invasive thistles, it's actually an excellent food soure for pollinators, and is a larval hosts for butterflies. Birds, particularly goldfinches, relish the seeds.
Habitat:
Native to Eastern United States west to Texas and south to the Monroe County Keys; West Indies (Bahamas), southern Mexico and Central America. In the Monroe County Keys, disjunct from Miami-Dade County to the pine rocklands of Big Pine Key.
Notes:
Spotted in a field near the detention/retention pond in an office building complex in Kennesaw, GA
Add'l web refs:
http://www.floridanature.org/species.asp?species=cirsium_horridulum
http://regionalconservation.org/beta/nfyn/plantdetail.asp?tx=Cirshorr
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CIHO2
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