Japanese name: スズカアザミ（鈴鹿薊） Scientific name:Cirsium suzukaense
[Overview]
A perennial 70–180 cm tall, growing at the edges of deciduous forests and in grassland from low mountains to mountains.
This thistle is found in the Tokai region and the Suzuka Mountains.
The stem rises obliquely 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, elliptic to lanceolate, 12–30 cm long and 3–14 cm wide, and are either pinnately divided into 3–6 pairs of lobes, or undivided with toothed or nearly entire margins.
The leaves are usually hairless on both surfaces, with spines on the margins.
Four to six pale reddish-purple flower heads are borne in a raceme to spike at the stem tip, each on a stalk 0.5–3 cm long.
The involucre is cylindrical to narrowly bell-shaped, 1.4–1.9 cm long and 0.6–1.2 cm wide, tinged purplish brown, with involucral bracts in 11–12 rows that have glands and are sticky.
The fruit is an achene with white pappus hairs.
