Plant · P-951

Woolly Distaff Thistle

Carthamus lanatus

Woolly distaff thistle is a spiny woolly winter annual in the daisy family closely related to safflower - yellow disk flowers held above thistle-like foliage. Its seed yields an edible oil and the plant has served as a vermifuge diaphoretic and fever remedy though every other use rates low. It self-sows readily into disturbed open ground and carries a noxious-weed listing in parts of North America so it needs siting where its seed spread can be managed.