Beaver Island Michigan

When Phyllis Higman was here for the forestry/wildlife symposium she showed me an invasive thistle here on Beaver Island. Since then, I have seen it all over the island, even out my kitchen window. This thistle only flowers once so if we cut the flower heads off the thistle for a few years we could banish it from the Island.
My wife and two small children are going to help me cut some thistle head at the wetland by Johnny Martinâ??s trail off East side drive. We will be at the wetland Saturday July 3rd from 9:30 to 11:30. You can park at the state gravel pit and walk less than 0.1 miles to the wetland. When you are there I can easily show you how to identify this thistle so you can remove it from other areas. Keep in mind there are native thistle on Beaver Island, one is federally threatened so please do not assume you should kill all thistle. You can help if you bring a pruners or large scissors (To cut the flower head off the plant stem) a bag to put the flower head in (Plastic or paper grocery bag are good) and some shoes you wonâ??t mind getting wet (Some of the thistles are growing in an inch of water).
I hope to see you there.
ERIC MYERS

Eric, I just returned home from a two hour harvest at Little Sand Bay. I collected nearly two plastic bags of flowering heads from a fairly small area. According to Phyllis' book it's a good idea to cut the stalk near the ground as well as snipping off the flowers - don't forget the smaller buds along the stalk. The thistle - European Swap Thistle - is flowering right now so we need to act right away. Unfortunately, I won't be able to join you tomorrow, but keep us posted for any future efforts.

Is there another name it goes by. I looked for it on Google and only found this post. I was hoping to find pictures.

I found this site with some photos:

http://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/herbar ... rpal01.htm

The plants scientific name is (Cirsium palustre) Do a search on that and you'll get all the info. you want.

Here is what some of your tax dollars are doing at the USDA
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CIPA6

This plant is everywhere, as Frank said make sure you get the lower flower buds. ALSO, we need to make sure it does not send up 100 new flower shoots after it is cut, so keep an eye on the one's you cut. The last thing we want is to help these plants make MORE Seeds.