Saffron thistle with a bonus spider

''Carthamus lanatus'' is a species of thistle known as woolly distaff thistle or saffron thistle. It is closely related to safflower, which is in the same genus. This annual plant is a native of the Mediterranean Basin, but it is familiar in other places where it was introduced and has become a noxious weed, such as in parts of North America and southern Australia with similar climates. This is a spiny, glandular, woolly plant, which often looks like it is covered in spiderweb due to its fine tangled.. more