The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Carlina acaulis
Also called Stemless Carline Thistle
Carline thistle is a low perennial thistle of alpine meadows and grassy slopes in central and southern Europe, forming a rosette of spiny leaves with a single flower head sitting directly on the ground. It is mainly grown as a rock garden plant and needs good drainage and full sun.
Carlina acaulis, the stemless carline thistle, dwarf carline thistle, or silver thistle, is a perennial dicotyledonous flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to alpine regions of central and southern Europe. The specific name acaulis (Neo-Latin for 'without a stem', from Latin caulis 'stem' or 'stalk') and common names are descriptive of the manner in which its flower head rests directly upon a basal leaf rosette. The plant is named after Charlemagne who searched for a treatment against the plague. He dreamed of an angel who told him to shoot an arrow in the sky and see on what plant the arrow would hit. This plant would bring relieve to the plague. The plant the arrow hit was the Carlina acaulis, the roots of the plant were distributed among the population following which the plague diminished.
The rhizome contains a number of essential oils, in particular the antibacterial carlina oxide. The root was formerly employed in herbal medicine as a diuretic and cold remedy.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Carlina acaulis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
