Japanese name: ミヤコアザミ（都薊） Scientific name:Saussurea maximowiczii
[Overview]
A perennial 0.5–1.5 m tall, growing in sunny grasslands and woodland edges in the mountains.
The stem is erect, wingless, and branched.
Glandular dots are present on the stem and the undersides of the leaves.
There are basal leaves and alternate leaves on the stem.
The basal leaves remain during the flowering season; they are oblong, 11–30 cm long, and either deeply cut pinnately into 4–6 pairs of lobes or wavy-margined, rarely undivided with serrate margins, and have petioles 5–22 cm long.
The flower heads are borne in corymbs at the stem tips, are about 1 cm across, and consist only of red-purple tubular florets.
The involucre is cylindrical, 1–1.4 cm long and 0.6 cm across, and the margins of the involucral bracts are purplish brown.
The involucral bracts are in 7–8 rows and have rounded tips.
The fruit is an achene with a pappus.
[Notes]
The Japanese name is said to compare its elegant appearance to a person of the capital.
