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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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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.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 6–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6.1–7.8
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 2–3.3 ft
- Mature spread
- Not yet recorded
- Plant spacing
- 18–24 in
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
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African Eggplant
Solanum aethiopicum
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Agrimony
Agrimonia eupatoria
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Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
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Aloe Vera
Aloe vera
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Amaranth Greens
Amaranthus tricolor
Amaranth greens are one of the few leafy vegetables actually built for peak summer heat rather than one that just tolerates it - sown once…
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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