Cicerbita alpina or Alpine Blue-sow-thistle is a perennial herbaceous

Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 plant species belonging to the genus Cicerbita

Cicerbita

Cicerbita is a genus of plants in the Asteraceae family.- Description :Cicerbita are mostly quite strong, perennial herbaceous plants. Their leaves are lyre-shaped or toothed pinnate with a terminal lobe which is clearly larger than the side lobes. Some species have only one pair of rather small...

of the Asteraceae

Asteraceae

The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

family.

Description

Cicerbita alpina reaches on average 80 centimetres (31.5 in) of height, with a minimum height of 50 centimetres (19.7 in) and a maximum height of 150–200 cm (59.1–78.7 ). The stem contains a kind of latex. The leaves are broad, triangular and amplexicaul. It has many blue-violet to purple flowers in clusters. The flowering period extends from June to September.

Gallery

Distribution

Alpine Blue-sow-thistle grows on all the mountains of Europe (the Alps, the Pyrenees, the northern Apennines, the Scandinavian Peninsula, Scotland, Carpathians and the Urals).

Habitat

These plants can be found in alpine woods on average at 1000–1800 m (3,280.8–5,905.5 ) above sea level.

External links

• Cicerbita alpina Species listing page.
• Biolib
• Cicerbita alpina