Japanese name: ハナマキアザミ（花巻薊） Scientific name:Cirsium hanamakiense
[Overview]
A perennial 1–2 m tall, found at the edges of deciduous forests in the mountain beech zone and in grassland between the trees.
The stem is ascending and branches freely in the upper part, the branches spreading at wide angles; the upper part of the stem bears brown hairs and cobwebby hairs.
There are basal leaves and stem leaves; the basal leaves have withered by the flowering season.
The stem leaves are alternate, elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, 25–40 cm long and 6–16 cm wide, and are either undivided with coarsely toothed margins, or pinnately divided into 3–8 pairs of lobes with sharp spines at the lobe tips.
Several to many pale pink flower heads are borne in a raceme at the stem tip, blooming sideways to downward on stalks 2–6 cm long.
The involucre is narrowly cylindrical to bell-shaped-cylindrical, 0.6–1 cm wide, purplish brown or reddish brown, and the involucral bracts are in 11–12 rows, with short tips that spread and curve back.
The inner and middle involucral bracts have glands and are very sticky.
In the populations found in Akita, the glands are vestigial and the involucre is often not sticky.
The fruit is an achene with a white pappus.
