Talk:Onopordum acanthium

Using the information currently on this page, we intend to broaden the perspective and round out the article. We will add relevant citations, references, eliminate redundancies and restructure the page with an introduction and sections on biology. We will also add a section on control, as Scotch thistle is a significant agricultural and wildland weed in Northern California. On December 9, 2005, we will post changes and post Scotch thistle and Onopordum acanthium pointer pages to the cotton thistle page, as common names differ regionally.--PBG250 23:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * We posted our edits, which include the information that was previously up on the page, and we added two new sections on invasiveness (as seen in Northern California) and control methods.--PBG250 03:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Pictures not showing O. acanthium or Onopordum spec. at all !?
As I know Onopordum acanthium from Germany, I was quite surprised by the pics used in the english version of the wiki-article. I very much doubt that the pictures used here (taken by user Peripitus in Australia) show Onopordum acanthium. If you compare them to images from the german article, you will see quite clear differences ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eselsdistel.JPG ) in Leaf anatomy and flower head shape. I'd rather identify the currently used pictures as a member of Cirsium - compare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirsium_vulgare.

see also: http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&ibra=all&card=H21 for pictures of O. acanthium in Australia.

84.59.23.246 (talk) 21:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC) dbm.

Scotch thistle common name
There's no reason not to include this common name in the article. Not only is it a redirect, but it's a very commonly used name in the U.S. (possibly the most common, though I can't prove that). Here are just a few government publications using that name:.

Or, just compare these two Google searches: 8170 results and 343 results. SheepNotGoats (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And heck, the *National Invasive Species Information Center* uses the name Scotch thistle (we have a link to it in External Links). It would almost be inaccurate of us not to include the name in the article. SheepNotGoats (talk) 17:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * FYI, I've brought this up at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants. SheepNotGoats (talk) 20:51, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Ref. #13" referred to the 13th in the list at the bottom of the page. I have added the details from it. 217.206.228.6 (talk) 11:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This reference is not substantial enough for this claim to be mentioned in the article. GRIN's tiny footnote does not give a source for its claim, even though they source pretty much everything on that site (I know this is assuming bad faith, but it kinda makes me think someone contacted GRIN directly and asked it to be added, which is why GRIN doesn't provide a source for it), and so far no one has found any other reliable source that mentions this. SheepNotGoats (talk) 14:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Scotch thistle and Scotland
The article currently claims that this thistle plant is the national flower of Scotland. There are no reliable sources to this that I can find, and other probably unreliable sources suggest that the national flower is Cirsium vulgare which seems much more likely to me. Imc (talk) 21:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The thistle has been the emblem of Scotland since the 13th century, well before the cotton thistle was introduced. Onopordium acanthium still has only a restricted distribution in Scotland whereas the native Cirsium vulgare is ubiquitous. C. vulgare is known as Scots/Scotch/Scottish thistle in Scotland. Northern rock (talk) 11:58, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Even so, it seems that calling Cirsium vulgare the national flower is still speculation. Unless an official Scottish source that defines the species is known, it would be better to avoid claiming that a particular species is the national flower, and instead provide evidence for why C. vulgare is likely the "inspiration" for the national flower, as opposed to O. acanthium. jtp174 (talk) 14:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

The only clay dandy is nice and sandy
The plant prefers habitats with dry summers, such as the Mediterranean region, growing best in sandy, sandy clay and calcareous soils which are rich in ammonium salts. That's very sandy. Is this supposed to read "sand, sandy clay"? I'd correct it but I have no idea if it actually grows in sand. 82.95.254.249 (talk) 16:02, 4 April 2019 (UTC)