SPEAR THISTLE

Annual Weed/Broadleaf weed. Spear thistle is an annual plant that is often mistaken for Scotch thistle. It is common throughout Australia. Spear thistle is mainly a weed of agricultural areas and wasteland. It competes with sown species, inhibits livestock movement, and causes both fault in wool and physical injury to animals. Spear thistle is an upright herb up to 1.5 m tall. It may be annual, biennial, or a short-lived perennial. At first, it grows as a rosette (a cluster of leaves close to the ground growing out from a central point), as it matures it produces upright branched spiny stems.

Though this species is primarily a weed of pastures, crops, waste areas and roadsides, it sometimes spreads from these areas into disturbed native grasslands, open woodlands and conservation areas. However, it is not a serious environmental weed in south-eastern Queensland., Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare) is regarded as an environmental weed in parts of south-eastern Australia (i.e. Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales

A very widely distributed species that is naturalised throughout the southern and eastern parts of Australia. It is very common in south-eastern Queensland, the southern and eastern parts of New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania.

Spray FireHawk Bioherbicide Concentrate: 50 mL/L of water. Respray if required