Cool flower...

The purpose of this forum is to help people identify things they've seen while out hiking: wildflowers, trees, birds, insects, small animals, animal tracks, even geographical features like buttes or streams
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Arturo
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Joined: April 20th, 2015, 6:44 am
Location: Portland

Cool flower...

Post by Arturo » June 6th, 2016, 7:03 am

if you pinch and zoom you can see tiny white flowers growing inside the larger purple flower. Looks like some kind of thistle. Anybody know what it is?
IMG_20160605_100118.jpg

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bobcat
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Joined: August 1st, 2011, 7:51 am
Location: SW Portland

Re: Cool flower...

Post by bobcat » June 9th, 2016, 5:49 am

It is a thistle: many of the invasive species look similar, but this is probably Cirsium vulgare - bull thistle.

The tiny flowers within a single flower head are a defining feature of members of the aster family (also called composites), perhaps the largest plant family (There's a debate over whether there are more orchids than composites).

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