Onopordum argolicum, Boiss.

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1976, Flora Europaea. Volume 4. Plantaginaceae to Compositae (and Rubiaceae), Cambridge University Press : 246

7. О. argolicum Boiss. , Diagn. Pl. Or. Nov. 2(10): 91 (1849).

Plant up to 150 cm, with multicellular hairs, more or less viscid. Stem brownish, sparsely hairy, densely and minutely glandular in the grooves; wings up to 8 mm wide, subpalmate, with spines up to 6 mm. Leaves up to 25 x 6 cm, oblong-lanceolate, sessile, pinnatisect, with 10—12 pairs of lobes, dark green, sparsely hairy and densely glandular above, greyish-arachnoid-hairy beneath; lobes triangular or palmate, with raised, somewhat reticulate yellowish veins beneath, tapering into a spine up to 5 mm. Capitula 40-60 x 60-80 mm, subglobose, densely arachnoidhairy; involucral bracts 35-45 mm, 5-7 mm wide near base, tapering to a coriaceous, semicylindrical, patent or deflexed process. Corolla 25-30 mm. Achenes 4-5 mm, brownish-grey; pappus 8-10mm. Sardegna-, Malta, Linosa-, S. Greece. Gr Sa Si.