Japanese name: ヤナギアザミ（柳薊） Scientific name:Cirsium lineare
[Overview]
A perennial 70–120 cm tall, found in grasslands from lowlands to mountains and preferring limestone areas.
It has a taproot, and a thick root extends vertically.
The stem is erect and branches freely around the middle.
There are basal leaves and stem leaves; the basal leaves have withered by the flowering season.
The stem leaves are alternate; those at the middle are lanceolate to linear, 5–20 cm long and 0.3–2 cm wide, firm in texture, with entire margins or shallowly pinnately divided.
Three to five reddish purple flower heads are borne in corymbs at the stem tip, or a single one, blooming upward to obliquely upward on stalks 4–14 cm long.
The involucre is bowl-shaped to broadly bell-shaped with cobwebby hairs, and the involucral bracts are in 8–9 rows, with ascending tips.
The inner involucral bracts have fan-shaped appendages at the tips, which are dry and membranous, tinged reddish purple, with coarsely toothed margins.
The involucral bracts have glands and are very sticky.
The fruit is an achene with a white pappus.
