Cirsium altissimum |
Asteraceae tribe Cardueae |
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roadside thistle, tall thistle |
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Habit | Biennials or short-lived monocarpic perennials, (50–)100–300(–400) cm; taproots and often a cluster of coarse fibrous roots, roots without tuberlike enlargements. | Annuals or perennials (sometimes coarse and/or robust, often prickly-spiny and thistlelike [subshrubs, shrubs, or trees]; rarely dioecious, e.g., some Cirsium spp.). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stems | single, erect, villous with septate trichomes, sometimes ± glabrate, sometimes distally thinly tomentose; branches few–many, ascending. |
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Leaves | blades oblanceolate to elliptic or ovate, 10–40 × 1–13 cm, margins flat, finely spiny-toothed and otherwise undivided to coarsely toothed or shallowly pinnatifid, lobes broadly triangular, main spines 1–5 mm, abaxial faces white-tomentose, adaxial faces green, glabrate to villous with septate trichomes; basal usually absent at flowering, winged-petiolate, bases tapered; principal cauline well distributed, gradually reduced, bases narrowed, sometimes weakly clasping; distal cauline well developed. |
basal and/or cauline; alternate; ± petiolate or sessile; (leaf bases often decurrent on stems) margins usually lobed to dissected, sometimes dentate or entire (usually spiny). |
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Peduncles | 0–5 cm (leafy-bracted). |
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Involucres | ovoid to broadly cylindric or campanulate, (2–)2.5–3.5(–4) × (1.5–)2–3(–4) cm, thinly arachnoid. |
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Receptacles | flat to convex, usually epaleate (often pitted and often bristly-setose or densely hairy). |
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Style | tips 4–6 mm. |
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Ray florets | 0 (corollas of peripheral florets in radiant heads often notably enlarged, usually 5-lobed, sometimes zygomorphic and raylike or ± 2-lipped). |
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Peripheral (pistillate) florets | 0 or (in disciform heads) in 1–3+ series; corollas (usually present) usually yellow, sometimes ochroleucous or cyanic. |
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Disc florets | bisexual and fertile (rarely functionally staminate); corollas yellow, cyanic, or white, usually actinomorphic, lobes 5, usually narrowly triangular to ± linear, seldom deltate (sometimes unequal, corollas then ± zygomorphic); anther bases ± tailed, apical appendages usually oblong (filaments sometimes papillate to pilose; connate in Silybum); styles (bisexual, fertile florets) distally enlarged or swollen, usually dilated and/or with rings of hairs at or near point of bifurcation, abaxially smooth or papillate to hairy (at least distally, sometimes ± throughout), “branches” often connate, adaxially continuously stigmatic ± to tips, apices rounded to acute, appendages essentially none. |
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Corollas | pink to purple (white), 20–35 mm, tubes 10–16 mm, throats 5–12 mm, lobes 5–9 mm. |
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Phyllaries | in 10–20 series, strongly imbricate, greenish with subapical darker central zone, ovate (outer) to lanceolate (inner), abaxial faces with a narrow glutinous ridge (milky when fresh, dark when dry), outer and middle entire, bodies appressed, spines slender, abruptly spreading, 3–4 mm; apices of inner phyllaries spreading, narrow, flattened, entire, spines spreading, slender, 3–4 mm; apices of inner phyllaries spreading, narrow, flattened, ± dilated, ± erose or finely serrulate. |
usually persistent [readily falling], in (1–)3–5+ series, usually distinct, usually unequal, usually herbaceous (sometimes fleshy), margins (entire or denticulate to pectinate, sometimes spiny) and apices seldom notably scarious (apices often spinose or ± expanded into distinct, often fimbriate-fringed, pectinate, and/or spiny appendages). |
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Calyculi | 0 (involucres sometimes closely subtended by leaflike peduncle bracts). |
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Heads | 1–many, in corymbiform or paniculiform arrays, (± elevated above principal cauline leaves), not subtended by ring of spiny bracts. |
mostly homogamous (usually discoid, sometimes disciform or radiant, then peripheral florets usually pistillate or neuter, sometimes bisexual or with staminodes), borne singly or in corymbiform, paniculiform, or racemiform arrays (heads with 1 floret each aggregated into second-order heads in Echinops). |
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Cypselae | tan to dark brown, 4–5.5 mm, apical collars stramineous, 0.5–1 mm; pappi 12–24 mm. |
usually monomorphic within heads (often thick-walled, hard, nutlike, receptacular attachments basal or lateral, bases sometimes each with an elaiosome), usually ellipsoid, obovoid, or ovoid, sometimes rounded-prismatic, terete, 4–5-angled, or ± compressed, rarely beaked, bodies usually smooth, sometimes rugose or 10- or 20-nerved (glabrous or puberulent to villous; often with apical umbo and/or crown in addition to pappus); pappi (rarely 0) readily falling or persistent, usually of fine to coarse, barbellate to plumose bristles, sometimes of scales, sometimes both bristles and scales. |
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2n | = 18. |
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Cirsium altissimum |
Asteraceae tribe Cardueae |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall (Jun–Oct). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Prairies, woodlands, disturbed sites, often in damp soil | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 50–700 m (200–2300 ft) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
AL; AR; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; MI; MN; MO; MS; NC; ND; NE; NY; OH; OK; PA; SC; SD; TN; TX; WI; WV
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Mostly Old World; especially Mediterranean [Some species widely introduced] |
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Discussion | Plants of Cirsium altissimum ranging from southern Minnesota to Texas often have more deeply divided leaves than do populations in other portions of the species’ range. Some botanists (e.g., R. J. Moore and C. Frankton 1969; D. S. Correll and M. C. Johnston 1970) have treated those plants as C. iowense. Others (e.g., R. E. Brooks 1986; H. A. Gleason and A. Cronquist 1991; G. B. Ownbey and T. Morley 1991) have treated them as C. altissimum. Still others considered them to be derivatives of hybridization between C. altissimum and C. discolor (J. T. Kartesz and C. A. Meacham 1999) and treated them as C. ×iowense. Indeed the existence of these plants blurs the distinction between C. altissimum and C. discolor, and herbarium specimens are often difficult to assign. Natural hybrids between Cirsium altissimum and C. discolor are well documented (R. A. Davidson 1963; G. B. Ownbey and Hsi Y.-T. 1963; Ownbey 1964; S. Dabydeen 1997). Ownbey and Dabydeen both reported that apparent F1 hybrids between the two species have low seed set in comparison with the parental taxa. W. L. Bloom (1977) reported that the chromosomes of the two species differ by several rearareaments. Dabydeen reported a count of 2n = 19 with multiple meiotic irregularities for an apparent F1 hybrid. However, the presence of numerous individuals and populations seemingly intermediate between C. altissimum and C. discolor indicates that although F1 hybrids have low fertility, long-term processes may have stabilized hybrid derivatives of higher fertility. Ownbey and Hsi reported mitotic counts of 2n = 18 and 20 from a population that they treated as C. altissimum. In their discussion they noted that their plants represented “the segregate called C. iowense” and had been collected a short distance from that taxon’s type locality. R. J. Moore and C. Frankton (1969) reported a chromosome number of 2n = 18 for a plant from Texas that they considered to be C. iowense. Further investigation of morphologic variation, chromosome number, meiotic behavior, and fertility is needed of populations named as C. iowense to determine how those plants should be treated. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Genera 83, species 2500 (17 genera, 116 species in the flora). The circumscription for Cynareae adopted here is the traditional one and includes the three elements (Cynareae in the narrow sense, Carlineae, and Echinopeae) recognized as tribally distinct by M. Dittrich (1977[1978]). Work by K. Bremer (1987) supported the Dittrich scheme. A traditional circumscription of Cynareae was maintained by J. L. Panero and V. A. Funk (2002). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 19, p. 111. | FNA vol. 19, p. 82. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Asteraceae > tribe Cardueae > Cirsium | Asteraceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Carduus altissimus, C. altissimum var. biltmoreanum, C. iowense | family Asteraceae tribe Cynareae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | (Linnaeus) Sprengel: Syst. Veg. 3: 373. (1826) | Cassini | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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