Citation: Honck., Vollst. Syst. Verz. 1:374 (1782).

Synonymy: Dipsacus fullonum

Common name: Wild teasel.

Description:
Robust biennial herbs to 2 m tall, with erect stems with few prickles along the ridges; basal leaves in a loose rosette, oblanceolate or elliptic, entire; cauline leaves stem-clasping and more or less fused at the base to their opposite number, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 10-15 cm long, rarely longer, distantly crenate-dentate, glabrous or glabrescent.

Inflorescence terminal heads, ovoid-cylindrical to almost cylindrical when fruiting, 3-9 x 2.5-4 cm; involucral bracts strap-like, tough, some as long as or longer than the inflorescence, with a few small prickles and cilia becoming more or less glabrous with age, with the apex becoming spinescent; receptacular scales, 9-12 mm long and about as long as the florets, with a broad clasping base abruptly constricted into a stout recurved acumen of equal length; flowers each subtended by a receptacular scale; calyx white; corolla narrowly funnel-shaped with short lobes of slightly unequal length, pinkish-mauve, densely hairy; anthers well exserted above the corolla tube; ovary inferior, with I pendulous ovule, style and a swollen 2-fid stigma pink.

Fruit tetrangular, 4-5 mm long, with the calyx usually deciduous, minutely appressed-hairy.

	Infructescence, flower, two bracts, fruit and transverse section of fruit.
Image source: fig. 621a in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Distribution:  S.Aust.: SL, SE.   Origin unknown, naturalised in south-western and central Europe. Conservation status: naturalised Flowering time: summer.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: It seems unlikely that this species is naturalised in S.Aust. Its occurrence in Lobethal is possibly associated with the wool industry of the area as the dried inflorescences of D. sativus were used in preparing cloth. The less robust species D. follonum was recorded in N.S.W. and Vic.

Author: Not yet available