N…is for Nuttall’s Thistle!
Cirsium nuttallii, called Nuttall’s thistle, is a North American species of plants in the thistle tribe within the sunflower family. The species is
native to the coastal plain of the southeastern coastal plain and south-central United States, from eastern Texas to southeastern Virginia.
Cirsium
nuttallii is a biennial or perennial herb
up to 350 cm (almost 12 feet) tall, the entire plant is exceedingly spiny.
Leaves are up to 60 cm (24 inches) long with thin, green on the upper side but
gray to white on the underside because of numerous woolly hairs; spines along
the edges of the leaves.
Thistles are biennials; they do not flower in their
first year, but develop a deep tap root and a basal rosette of leaves. Flowering
occurs in the second year, they go to seed, and then the plants die. The large
number of seeds produced by their parents, however, ensures that more plants
will emerge next spring.
Nuttall’s Thistle is named after Thomas
Nuttall (1786-1859), an esteemed English naturalist who did important work in
the United States between 1808 and 1841. Among many other accomplishments he
authored The Genera of North American
Plants and a Catalogue of the Species to 1817 (1818)
and A Manual of the Ornithology of
the United States and of Canada (1832-34).
Comments
Post a Comment