Cirsium lecontei |
Asteraceae tribe Cardueae |
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black or Le Conte's thistle, Le Conte's thistle |
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Habit | Perennials but sometimes appearing biennial, 35–110 cm; taproots, sometimes with root sprouts. | 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 | 1–few, erect, distal 1/2 nearly naked, loosely arachnoid; branches 0–5(–10), stiffly ascending. |
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Leaves | blades linear to oblong or narrowly elliptic, 15–25 × 1–4 cm, coarsely toothed to shallowly pinnatifid, lobes undivided or coarsely few-toothed, main spines 3–6 mm, abaxial faces often ± glabrate, loosely arachnoid when young, adaxial glabrous or sparingly villous with coarse, multicellular trichomes; basal sometimes absent at flowering, petiolate; principal cauline sessile, progressively reduced distally, bases clasping or ± decurrent; distal cauline few, widely separated, bractlike. |
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 | 5–30 cm (elevated above cauline leaves, not subtended by ring of involucre-like bracts). |
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Involucres | broadly cylindric to campanulate, 2.5–4 × 1.5–4 cm, loosely arachnoid, ± glabrate. |
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Receptacles | flat to convex, usually epaleate (often pitted and often bristly-setose or densely hairy). |
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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-purple, 22–45 mm, tubes 10–23 mm, throats 8–14 mm, lobes 7–10 mm; style tips 4–5 mm. |
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Phyllaries | in 6–10 series, imbricate, ovate or lanceolate (outer) to linear-lanceolate (inner), abaxial faces with prominent glutinous ridge, outer and middle tightly appressed, margins spinulose-serrulate, spines ascending, 0.5–2 mm; apices of inner flat, linear- acuminate. |
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 | borne singly or less commonly 2–5(–10) in open, corymbiform arrays. |
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 | light brown, 5–5.75 mm, apical collars paler than body, ca. 0.75 mm; pappi 20–40 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 | = 28, 32. |
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Cirsium lecontei |
Asteraceae tribe Cardueae |
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Phenology | Flowering spring–summer (May–Aug). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Sandy pinelands of coastal plain, often in damp soil | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–150 m (0–500 ft) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
AL; FL; LA; MS; NC; SC
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Mostly Old World; especially Mediterranean [Some species widely introduced] |
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Discussion | Of conservation concern. Cirsium lecontei occurs on the southern coastal plain. R. J. Moore and C. Frankton (1969) suggested that it originated as a derivative of ancient hybridization between the ancestors of C. horridulum and C. nuttallii. They further suggested a relationship between C. lecontei and C. grahamii of Arizona and hypothesized an ancient dispersal from the southeastern coastal plain to the western cordillera. Although such relationships are possible, I have seen little support for them in my examination of these taxa. I think it is more likely that C. lecontei, C. horridulum, and C. nuttallii originated from a common stock, and that the resemblances between C. lecontei and C. grahamii are a result of convergence. (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. 114. | FNA vol. 19, p. 82. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Asteraceae > tribe Cardueae > Cirsium | Asteraceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Carduus lecontei | family Asteraceae tribe Cynareae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Torrey & A. Gray: Fl. N. Amer. 2: 458. (1843) | Cassini | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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