Leaf blades 50-150(-250) × 10-50(-80+) mm. Peduncles 1-5+ cm, bristly hispid. Calyculi: bracts 9-15+ × 3-5+ mm, margins and tips bristly-ciliate. Phyllaries often sigmoid in fruit, abaxial faces and tips bristly. Cypselae: bodies 2.5-3 mm, beaks 2.5-5 mm; pappi 4-7 mm. 2n = 10.

Flowering May-Nov. Disturbed sites; 0-50(-500) m; introduced; Alta., N.B., Ont., Sask.; Ariz., Calif., Conn., D.C., Iowa, Maine, Md., Mass., Mo., Mont., N.J., N.Y., N.Dak., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., Vt., Va.; Europe; widely introduced elsewhere.

Reports for British Columbia and Nova Scotia need confirmation.

Coarse, somewhat spiny-hispid annual 3-8 dm; lvs toothed or entire, the lower oblanceolate and petioled, the others more lanceolate or oblong, sessile and somewhat clasping, the blade to 25 נ7 cm; invol 1-2 cm, biseriate, the inner bracts narrow, commonly with a subterminal spiny awn-tip, the outer 3-5 foliaceous, ovate or lance- ovate, 3.5-8 mm wide, not much if at all shorter than the inner; achenes distinctly slender-beaked, the body 2-4 mm, the beak nearly as long, or longer, very fragile near its base; outer achenes half-moon-shaped, pale, woolly, partly enfolded by the bracts, the others narrower, shining, brown, rugulose, obscurely nerved; 2n=10. Fields and waste places; native of Europe, occasionally found in our range. July-Sept.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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