Cirsium vulgare (Spear Thistle)

Native to Europe, northwestern Africa, and parts of Asia, this plant is usually a biennial herb that forms a low rosette of spiny leaves before sending up a branched flowering stem. Its deeply lobed leaves have stiff spine-tipped lobes, rough upper surfaces, and hairy undersides. Leaf bases extend down the stem as spiny wings. Rounded flower heads contain many purple tubular florets above narrow, spine-tipped bracts. Each small, dry fruit carries a feathery tuft that aids dispersal by wind. The plant reproduces by seed and dies after flowering and fruiting. It has naturalized widely, including in Colombia. In Minnesota, it invades disturbed ground such as pastures, roadsides, and ditches and reduces forage quality because most grazing animals avoid it. Photographed in Bogotá, Colombia.