One of our only common native thistles. This thistle is very tall, and similar to Scotch thistle. It has spiky (though less so than some thistles) greenish-grey leaves, which have a thin coating of hair and a whitish vein running down the center. At the tip(s) of the stem, which may branch off several times, there are light, lavender-pink flowers. These flowers are composed of a large, rounded bulb (coated with pointy-edged green sepals like scales, each of which has a distinctive whitish stripe down the middle), and a disk-shaped fuzzy flower.