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Cirsium mohavense
Also called Rusby's Thistle, Virgin Thistle
Mojave thistle (Cirsium mohavense) is a native thistle of the Mojave Desert that grows in moist spots such as desert springs. It is a biennial or perennial that can reach about 2.5 m tall, so it needs consistent moisture and a sunny, open site.
Cirsium mohavense is a species of thistle known by the common names virgin thistle and Mojave thistle. It is native to the southwestern United States, where it grows in moist areas in otherwise dry habitat, such as desert springs. It is most common in the Mojave Desert, found also in the southern Great Basin and other nearby regions of California, Nevada, western Arizona, and southwestern Utah.
Cirsium mohavense is a biennial or perennial growing up to 2.5 meters (100 inches or 8 feet 4 inches) tall. The densely woolly stem branches and spreads near the top. The leaves are toothed to deeply lobed, woolly, spiny, and up to 60 centimeters (24 inches) long near the base of the plant. The inflorescence is a spreading array of clusters of flower heads, each generally less than 3 centimeters long and wide.
Dwarf Thistle · Tall thistle · Rose thistle · Franciscan thistle · Alishan Thistle · Arizona thistle · Creeping Thistle · Barneby's thistle · Cirsium boninense · Cirsium brachycephalum · Palouse thistle · Clustered thistle
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cirsium mohavense 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.
