General: Clokey Thistle (Cirsium clokeyi) is a two-year or short-lived perennial that spends the first year as a rosette of spiky leaves. In the second year, it sends up a flower stalk with spiky leaves topped with spike-protected purplish flowerheads. The spines are unusually long for thistles (about 1-inch long), white, and the underside of the leaves lacks woolly hairs.
Around Las Vegas, Clokey Thistle is an uncommon component of montane vegetation communities in moist and dry, well-drained areas in the Canadian Life (Pine-Fir Forest), Hudsonian (Bristlecone Pine Forest), and Alpine (Alpine Tundra) life zones. Look for this species up on Mt. Charleston, in particular, on the upper slopes and summit of Griffith Peak.
This is a rare plant with only some 10,000 individuals living in a area about 8-miles in diameter. Please be careful around these plants and don't pick the flowers!
Compare this species with Arizona Thistle, which (1) has shorter spines protecting the flowerhead and leaves, and (2) has woolly hairs on the underside of the leaves. |