Scientific name: Circerbita macrophylla (Willd.) Wallr.
Common name: Common blue-sow-thistle
Description
Habit: Perennial, to 2 m high.
Stems: Erect, branched above, leafy; with a far-creeping rhizome.
Leaves: Lower leaves pinnatifid with the terminal lobe the largest, with a winged petiole and clasping base; upper leaves toothed and often not pinnatifid, with an oval somewhat cordate blade and broadly-winged petiole.
Flowers: Purple, flower-heads numerous and in a glandular-hairy panicle; involucral bracts in several rows; florets all ligulate.
Fruits: An achene, not beaked, pappus of unbranched hairs.
Habitat: Hedges, waste ground, base of walls.
Distribution: Very local.
Native status: Not native
Of conservation interest: No