Carduus meonanthus Hoffmanns. & Link, it is an annual herb, up to 30-50 (-65) cm. Stem arachnoid hairy and glabrescent. winged, simple, erect. branched above; wings ± continuous, undulated. palmate, lobed, with soft, slender apical spines up to 5 mm. Leaves oblanceolate to oblong, glabrescent above, arachnoid hairy beneath with multicellular and sinuate unicellular hairs, sinuate pinnatifid with 8-10 pairs of palmate, acutely lobulate lobes, each with an apical spine up to 4 mm. Basal lower-cauline leaves up to 150 x 30 mm, tapered into a long, winged, soft spiny petiole. Mid-cauline leaves c. 100 x 20 mm, sessile. Capitula 15-20 x 8-12 mm, cylindrical oblong to ± narrowly campanulate, sub sessile, in clusters of 2-4(-8), on the apex of winged stem. Involucre arachnoid-hairy. Involucral bracts of 1st & 2nd rows 5-7 x 0.75-1 mm, linear-ovate, with thin scarious margins, tapered above into a soft, c. 2 mm long mucro, the one of the 2nd row keeled on the back in the distal one third. Involucral bracts of 3rd & 4th rows 8-9,5 x 1-1,5 mm, abruptly narrowed above into a soft c. 2 mm long mucro, margins narrowly scarious and minutely serrulate, keeled at the back in distal one third to one quarter. Inner involucral bracts 12-15 x 1.25-2 mm, linear-lanceolate, sharply acute, faintly 3 (-5) nerved in the distal one third, margins scarious, with borders minutely barbellate, tips and margins in the upper half sometimes purplish. Florets up to 13-15 mm long. Corolla 10-12 mm; basal tube of the corolla 4-5 mm, widened above in a narrower ellipsoid cup of c. 0.5 mm wide; unequally 5-lobed. Cypsela 3-4 mm, compressed, smooth; umbo small, sessile or shortly stalked, entire; pappus 8-10 (-13) mm.
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