Japanese name: ヒッツキアザミ（引っ付き薊） Scientific name:Cirsium congestissimum
[Overview]
A perennial 70–230 cm tall, found in mountain grasslands and at the edges of deciduous forests.
The stem is erect and branches in the upper part, with the branches spreading at wide angles; the upper part of the stem has brown hairs and cobwebby hairs.
There are basal leaves and stem leaves; the basal leaves have withered by flowering time.
The stem leaves are alternate, narrowly ovate to ovate, 25–45 cm long and 11–19 cm wide, pinnately divided into 4–6 pairs of lobes, with spines at the lobe tips.
They have a petiole, and the leaf base does not clasp the stem.
Several flower heads are borne at the stem tip, either pressed together in a mass or in corymbs.
The flower heads are pale reddish purple and face upward at the tips of short stalks.
The involucre is cylindrical, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, with the bracts recurved, in 9–10 rows.
The involucral bracts have no glands and are not sticky.
The fruit is an achene with a white pappus.
[Notes]
The Japanese name comes from the flower heads being borne in dense clusters.
