Cirsium ugoense ("Ugoazami")

Japanese name: ウゴアザミ （羽後薊）
Scientific name: Cirsium ugoense

[Overview]
A perennial 30–150 cm tall, growing in subalpine to alpine grasslands on the Sea of Japan side of the Tohoku region.
The stem is erect and usually unbranched, but sometimes branches in the upper part, and the upper part of the stem has pale brown hairs.
There are basal leaves and stem leaves, and the basal leaves and the lower stem leaves have withered by flowering time.
The stem leaves are alternate; those in the middle are elliptic to broadly ovate, 10–20 cm long and 6–10 cm wide, thick, and either pinnately divided into 4–6 pairs of lobes or undivided with coarse teeth on the margin.
The leaf base is ear-shaped and clasps the stem, and runs down the stem to form wings.
The stem tip bears one pale reddish-purple flower head, or several in a corymb, facing upward to obliquely upward.
The involucre is bell- to bowl-shaped, 1.8–2 cm wide, and the involucral bracts are in 6–7 rows, spreading, hard and leathery, with sharp spines at the tips.
The inner involucral bracts have glands and are slightly sticky.
The fruit is an achene with a white pappus.

[Notes]
The Japanese name derives from Ugo Province (present-day Akita and Yamagata).
It is common on Mt. Chokai, and the thistle on Azami-zaka slope is this species, while Chokai-azami is found at lower elevations than this.

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