Cirsium hasunumae ("Futamataazami")

Japanese name: フタマタアザミ （二俣薊）
Scientific name: Cirsium hasunumae

[Overview]
A perennial 1–2.5 m tall, found at the edges of deciduous forests in the mountains.
The stem is slender and rises obliquely, branching in the upper part, with the branches spreading widely at broad angles.
The upper part of the stem has sparse brown hairs and cobwebby hairs.
There are basal leaves and alternate leaves on the stem; the basal leaves have withered by flowering time.
The leaves on the lower part of the stem are ovate to broadly ovate, 27–45 cm long and 15–25 cm wide, and pinnately divided into 4–8 pairs of lobes.
The petiole is short or the leaf is almost sessile, and the leaf base somewhat clasps the stem.
The flower heads are borne sparsely in groups of 3–4, slightly drooping, at the tips of slender flowering branches, and are pale reddish purple.
The involucre is narrowly cylindrical, 0.6–0.8 cm wide and tinged with purple, with involucral bracts in 11–12 rows.
The inner and middle involucral bracts usually have well-developed glands and are markedly sticky, but in some plants the glands are vestigial and not sticky.
The margins of the middle involucral bracts are membranous and wavy.
The fruit is an achene with a white pappus.

[Notes]
A thistle endemic to Fukushima; the Japanese name derives from Futamatagawa, Tenei Village, Iwase District, Fukushima.

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