Cirsium Species, Southern Thistle, Texas Purple Thistle, Texas Thistle

Having spent 4 yrs living on President LBJ's National Park, I realized aside from the Bluebonnet, the Texas Thistle is the most abundant ...Read Moregrowing beauty in the Hill Country area. It's vibrant color and bloom are truly exquisite. Precisely due to this flower, began my love of photographing the local Hill Country flowers and blooms. I have a wonderful collection now, but my favorite, hands down, is the Cirsium Texanum.

I've been growing the Texas thistle in a container for four years, and it's finally blooming this year. The blooms are beautiful and so v...Read Moreery fragrant; exactly like sweet perfume. It's a valuable native plant that attracts bees and butterflies, and it's pretty much pest free. It is a thistle, though, with its sharp spines and prolific seed-bearing, so it's not for everyone. However, if you love native plants and naturescaping, then Texas thistle is a must.

This is one of those plants where one gardener's treasure is another gardener's treasure. In this area of Texas, (North Central Texas Da...Read Morellas-Fort Worth,: these grow wild on the freeway medians
hey easily get taller than me, and I am 5 foot w in. They have a beauriful bloom, but are impossible to handle without very thick gloves. They self seed promiscuouslt and are almost impossible
to eradicate.
Imho, they are best enjoyed in photographs or drawings. Their only saving grace would be the attractiveness to bees, But there are many many better ways to attract bees!

San Antonio, Tx.
An upright perennial that has spiny leaves and bracts, it can grow can grow from between two to five feet tall. A...Read Morelthough the flower head does not have ray flowers, it has numerous pink to rose-purple disk flowers. It is foraged by butterflies and other insects and birds, such as the goldfinch, eat the seeds. White-tailed deer sometimes eat the flower buds and Rio Grande turkeys eat the seeds.