Japanese thistle

Cirsium japonicum, the Japanese thistle, is a spiny perennial herb of the Asteraceae growing 0.5–1 m tall from a thickened, fleshy taproot. The erect stem bears alternate, deeply pinnately lobed leaves with spine-tipped margins, the bases somewhat clasping, the upper surface dark green. The flower heads are large and showy, solitary or few at the branch tips, with numerous tubular florets that are typically rose-purple to reddish, surrounded by an involucre of narrow, spine-tipped bracts often coated with a sticky secretion. The fruit is an oblong achene crowned by a pappus of plumose, feathery bristles that aids wind dispersal. Native to eastern Asia, including China, Japan, and Korea, it grows in grasslands, roadsides, hillsides, and disturbed open ground, and is valued in traditional medicine where the root and whole plant are collected.