"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in message
...
In message , Christina Websell
writes

"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in message
...
In message , Christina Websell
writes

"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in message
...

If we are talking thistles, what is mine? It's 8 feet high,
multistemmed,
normal purple flowers just coming out. It's so big and wide I might
have
to
cut it back so I can get down the garden.
My friend thinks it should be in the Guinness Book of Records.

Tina

If it's normal purple flowers then I'd guess it's the normal spear
thistle
(Cirsium vulgare). But other big, purple-flowered thistle-like plants
include cardoon, globe artichoke and cotton thistle.
--

I think you are probably right. It's growing next to a close board fence
which is 2 metres high plus gravel board and it's now 2 feet above that.
All my books suggested that spear thistles are about 6 ft. Sorry to mix
imperial and metric, I'm still on imperial but my neighbour - whose fence
it
is - told me the fence was 2 metres, and the gravel board looks to be
about
10 inches. Anyway, it's one big thistle!!
I shall leave it for now as the insects like it.

The books give the upper limit of the general run of a plant; bigger
specimens turn up. For example, Stace says that Malva sylvestris grows to
1m, and Flora Europaea says 1.5m (I think that the difference is
geographic variation); however there was a plant locally which reached
2.5m, or maybe even 3m.

As I said I shall keep it, the hoverflies love it. I shall tolerate being
majorly pricked by it. it's 3 ft away from my path to go to my chickens.
It's more than 3 feet wide. Ouch.

Tina