Flora of North America species comparison

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Cirsium occidentale var. lucianum
Photo is of parent taxon

Cuesta Ridge thistle
Habit Plants erect, 30–200 cm, densely gray-tomentose.
Involucres

about as wide as long, 2–4 cm, floccose-arachnoid, without fine trichomes connecting tips of adjacent phyllaries.
Corollas

dark reddish purple, 20–24 mm.
Phyllaries

imbricate, outer ascending to spreading or reflexed, mid apices ascending to spreading, straight or distally curved, usually 5–8 × 1–3 mm.
Heads

in openly branched arrays, long-pedunculate, elevated well above proximal leaves.

Cirsium occidentale var. lucianum
Phenology Flowering spring–summer (Apr–Jul).
Habitat Chaparral, openings in closed cypress conifer forests, mixed evergreen forests, oak woodlands
Elevation 500–1500 m (1600–4900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Variety lucianum occupies a narrow corridor along and adjacent to the main ridge of the southern Santa Lucia Mountains of San Luis Obispo County. D. J. Keil and C. E. Turner (1993) treated these plants as an atypical race of var. californicum. They resemble small-headed plants of the latter but differ in their dark, reddish purple corollas. They approach the ranges of var. californicum and var. venustum but are not known to grow with either. They may represent a stabilized emergent form derived by prehistoric hybridization between var. californicum and var. venustum.

of conservation concern

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 19, p. 139.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Cardueae > Cirsium > Cirsium occidentale
Sibling taxa
C. occidentale var. californicum, C. occidentale var. candidissimum, C. occidentale var. compactum, C. occidentale var. coulteri, C. occidentale var. occidentale, C. occidentale var. venustum
Name authority D. J. Keil: Sida 21: 214. (2004)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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