Berkheya bipinnatifida (Harv.) Roessler

Perennial (or ?biennial) erect thistle-like herb to 3 m, aromatic, with many thick unbranched roots from base of stem; stems several, branched, hollow, variably tomentose, rarely glabrous, whitish or dark brown with pale lenticels.. Leaves sessile, becoming less divided upwards, 5.2–22(–30) cm long, (0.3–)1.7–12(–18.5) cm wide; lower leaves congested forming a pseudo-rosette, lanceolate or occasionally obovate, base clasping and/or auricled with many stout marginal spines up to 7 mm long, not revolute, toothed or shallowly to deeply divided with large triangular lobes, dentate, teeth themselves toothed and spiny with pale green to yellow or brown spines (1–)4(–6) mm long, acute spinescent, occasionally obtuse or rounded (in cultivated material); upper leaves linear to lanceolate, pinnatifid, bipinnatifid or broadly triangular-lobed or toothed, lobes contiguous, each tooth with 1 or 2 secondary teeth and all spinescent with usually 2–3 smaller spines between them, deep dull green above, grey to white beneath; sparsely to densely hairy (and sometimes glandular) and occasionally sparsely arachnose above, felted beneath.. Capitula terminal and axillary in a paniculate or subcorymbose inflorescence, often congested, eradiate, urn-shaped, 1.5–2.5 cm diameter; involucre of 3–4 series of ± spreading foliaceous yellow-green phyllaries with pale strongly marked ribs and pale margins, narrowly triangular or narrowly ovate, 6–15 mm long, 1–2 mm wide, entire to sinuate-spiny, acute spinescent, ± hairy, rarely glabrescent; receptacle a shallow dome or more often ± flat, about 7 mm diameter; pits 1 mm deep with erose walls produced into scales 1–2 mm long, 0.25–0.5 mm wide.. Disc florets white or white tinged purple, 5.5–8 mm long, divided for approximately 1/2 the length into erect ± acute lobes about 3 mm long with scattered gland-tipped hairs, tube with longer hairs.. Achenes broadly turbinate, up to 3 mm long, with surface resembling maize-cob or capped honeycomb, sticky when bruised, with 6–10 prominent ribs, sparsely hairy; pappus uni-or sub-biseriate, of 17–25 oblong obovate or triangular glabrous often purple scales up to 1.5 mm long, rounded and obtuse, fimbriate or deeply erose in upper half.