Carduus argentatus, L .

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1976, Flora Europaea. Volume 4. Plantaginaceae to Compositae (and Rubiaceae), Cambridge University Press : 230

42. C. argentatus L. , Mantissa Alt. 280 (1771).

Annual up to 100 cm. Stem arachnoid-hairy; wings very narrow, sinuate to lobed with rounded lobes each with an apical spine up to 2 mm. Leaves glabrous or sparsely hairy above, greyish-tomentose beneath, with straight unicellular hairs and very few multicellular hairs on the veins, with rounded dentate lobes, each with an apical spine up to 1 mm. Capitula 15-18 x 10-13 mm, oblong; peduncles up to 12 cm and 1 mm in diameter; involucral bracts closely imbricate or slightly squarrose, the middle with an oblong-ovate, veinless, verruculose proximal part 1 - 5-2 mm wide and contracted in the distal i of the bract into a smooth, obtuse, shortly spinose apex with the mid-vein raised in the distal i, slightly arachnoid-hairy; inner bracts 2-3 mm wide, 1| times as long as the inner middle, broadly lanceolate, with scarious margins, 3-veined in the distal |. Corolla 9-11 mm. Achenes 2-5-3 mm, compressed, rugulose; apical prominence shortly stipitate, cylindrical, 5-lobed; pappus 7-9 mm. Rocky ground. Kriti, Karpathos. Cr. (S. W. Asia.)