Cirsium erisithales - Yellow Thistle

Phylum: Magnoliophyta - Class: Equisetopsida - Order: Asterales - Family: Asteraceae

A fairly common biennial or perennial herb found in central mainland Europe, the Yellow Thistle is sometimes referred to as the Yellow Melancholy Thistle.

Description

Yellow Thistle grows to a typical height of 0.8 to 1.2 metres with the occasional specimen reaching a height of 1.5 metres. The erec, sticky stems are hairless, while the long sparse, spiny leaves are deeply-divided.

Above: the deeply divided lobed leaves of Yellow Thistle

Yellow Thistle has nodding lemon-yellow flowers that occur either singly or in groups two to five. The flower heads are typically 20 to 30mm across, and the foverlapping lower bracts are green and tipped with small spines.

In late summer and autumn the seeds, which have feathery white papuses ('parachutes' as some people call them), are dispersed by the wind.

Above: White form of Cirsium erisithales at Curbridge Nature Reserve

Pollination is mainly by insects; however, Yellow Thistle is also reported to spread vegetatively via its root system.

Distribution

Common throughout much of central and southern Europe, this species is not native to Britain. It is a fairly common sight in France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Slovenia and parts of Spain.

Habitat

Yellow Thistle favours beech woodland edges, riverbanks, alpine slopes and meadows on alkaline soils, and it occurs mainly at altitudes of 400 to 2000 metres above sea level.

Blooming Times

Yellow Melancholy Thistle produces its flowers between May and September. The specimens shown on this page were already blooming in early June at an altitude of about 400 metres above sea level in western Slovenia.

Similar species

Melancholy Thistle Cirsium heterophyllum is native to Britain and Ireland; this upland species has pink flowers.

Etymology

Cirsium, the genus name, comes from Greek and means a kind of thistle. We do not know why the specific epithet erisithales was given to this species or what it was intended to signify.

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