Saffron Thistle
Scientific Name:
Carthamus lanatus
What is Saffron Thistle?
Saffron Thistle is a yellow to cream flowered, spiny, and slightly hairy to woolly, annual thistle that flowers in spring and summer and grows to around 1 metre tall with a much branched flowering stem with leaf like, spiny flower bracts and seeds that look like shuttlecocks. Saffron Thistle leaves are rigid and prominently veined, have cobweb-like hairs, are spine-tipped and the margins are spiny-toothed.