Cirsium arvense(L.) Scop.

creeping thistle

WFO wfo-0000006870 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Cirsium arvense, photographed by Светлана Царахова
fig. a Светлана Царахова, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205757914
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Jais Knudsen
fig. b Jais Knudsen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204900436
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Randy A Nonenmacher
fig. c Randy A Nonenmacher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205586560
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Violet T.
fig. d Violet T., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205848728
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. e Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205771281
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. f Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205758879
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Violet T.
fig. g Violet T., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204988227
Cirsium arvense, photographed by Michel Langeveld
fig. h Michel Langeveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204363507

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 8,029 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 8,029 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 73 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Aplotaxis circioides DC.
  • Breea arvensis (L.) Less.
  • Breea dioica (Cass.) Less.
  • Breea ochrolepidia (Juz.) Soják
  • Breea praealta (Cass.) Less.
  • Breea segeta f. segeta
  • Breea setosa (Willd.) Kitam.
  • Breea setosa (Willd.) Kitam.
  • Carduus arvensis (L.) Robson
  • Carduus arvensis var. arvensis
  • Carduus haemorrhoidalis DC.
  • Carduus neglectus Steud.
  • Carduus serratuloides Neck.
  • Carduus setosus Bab.
  • Cephalonoplos arvense (L.) Fourr.
  • Cephalonoplos arvense var. alpestre Kitam.
  • Cephalonoplos arvensis (L.) Fourr.
  • Cephalonoplos arvensis var. arvensis
  • Cephalonoplos ochrolepidium (Juz.) Juz.
  • Cephalonoplos setosus (Willd.) Kitam.
  • Cirsium albiflorum Kitag.
  • Cirsium argunense DC.
  • Cirsium arvense f. albiflorum Kitag.
  • Cirsium arvense f. arvense

and 49 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.