Is this just a bonsai'd spear thistle?

ChrelizG · #1 (**permalink**) 03-07-2011, 01:20 PM

Just trying to ID the snaps I took a couple of days ago on a walk in Lathkill Dale (Peak District). This was growing beside the stony path, & still looks odd - any thoughts, please?

Johnny81 · #2 (**permalink**) 03-07-2011, 05:42 PM

Possibly dwarf thistle? I can't really make out the scale of the plant.

bigdave60dog · #3 (**permalink**) 03-07-2011, 05:55 PM

It`s kinda familiar but ----. if you know what I mean. Look at the thistles around. Is it similar in other ways? A Carline or a welted Thistle that has been altered with selective herbicide would be my guess.
Dave

Johnny81 · #4 (**permalink**) 03-07-2011, 06:00 PM

Quite possibly a short musk thistle? I was having a doh moment with my first suggestion

Andy Warne · #5 (**permalink**) 03-07-2011, 06:02 PM

Agree with John, looks like Musk Thistle to me.

ChrelizG · #6 (**permalink**) 03-07-2011, 06:54 PM

Thanks. It was obviously a view from above, so scale difficult to see - it was approx 30 cm high, I think, & a bit wider - just a mass of leaves & those buds. Nothing else like it around. My books all show the musk in full flower, but the descriptions fit - cottony downy, on lime, old quarry spoil probably, if I remember correctly - we'd gone down into Lathkill from the Monyash end, totally bowled over by the profusion of plants, even though we'd been there before (later in the summer), & I think it was before we got down to the more shaded mine end.