Carduus tenuiflorus
species of plant
Carduus tenuiflorus is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is known variously as slender-flower thistle, sheep thistle, shore thistle, slender thistle, winged plumeless thistle, winged slender thistle and winged thistle. It is native to western Europe and Northwest Africa, and is an introduced species elsewhere.
Description
Carduus tenuiflorus may exceed 2 metres (6.6 ft) in height. Its tall stem is ridged with wings and has long spines which may be several centimeters in length. The dull olive-green leaves are lobed and wrinkled and may fold and crease themselves.
The inflorescences may hold up to 20 flower heads which are somewhat rounded, covered in wide, spiny phyllaries, and packed with pale pink to bright purple long-tubed disc florets. This is a tenacious weed of roadsides, fields, and disturbed areas.
Distribution
Carduus tenuiflorus is native to western North Africa in: northern Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia; Macaronesia; and much of western Europe in: Belgium, France, including Corsica, Ireland, Italy including Sardinia and Sicily, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain including the Balearic Islands, and the United Kingdom.
Introduced species
It has become naturalised in South Africa, India, Australasia, Southern South America, regions of the United States, and elsewhere.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Carduus tenuiflorus” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 10, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q788370. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carduus tenuiflorus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.