Virginia ecotype
- Duration: Biennial, sometimes short-lived perennial
- Habit: Upright, arching, open, naturalizing, deep rooted
- Size: 3 – 6 ft. high / 1.5 – 3 ft. wide
- Flowering time: July, August, September, October
- Bloom color: Soft lavender to pale purple
- Habitat: Open fields, meadows, woodland edges, roadsides, and disturbed areas
- Moisture: Average to moist, well-drained
- Light: Full sun to light shade
- Soils: Adaptable to clay, loam, sand, or gravelly soils
- Uses: Native meadows, prairie restorations, pollinator plantings, open woodland edges, and rain gardens with good sun exposure
- Grower's Note: This species spreads well by seed on open ground. The leaves and stems have sharp barbs and can be painful if handled without protection.
Cirsium discolor (Field thistle)
Cirsium discolor is an important native thistle -- non-aggressive, pollinator-friendly, an important host plant for Painted Lady butterflies, and strikingly beautiful. This tall, upright species produces large, showy pink or lavender-purple plumous flower heads mid to late summer.
The flowers of thistles are highly attractive to a wide range of native pollinators, during the time of their flowering one of the top most visited flowers in our garden. Butterflies, moths, bumblebees, and especially monarchs, which rely on the bountiful nectar during their migrations. Hummingbirds are also drawn to the nectar-rich blooms.
Unlike invasive and non-native thistles, Cirsium discolor has great ecological benefits and garden potential. Though it sports spiny foliage, it's less aggressive than non-native thistles and only spreads by dropping seed. The seed heds burst with fluffy white pappus, or brush-shaped structures, which help carry the seeds via the wind. Birds such as goldfinches pick the seeds straight out of the heads, leaving behind the pappus. Hummingbirds use the downy pappus of many species such as thistles for building their nests.
This thistle behaves as a biennial or short lives perennial, spending its first sprouted year as a low basal rosette of spiny leaves, and after flowering its second year may reseed moderately to persist in the landscape.