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Much-branched, stout, very prickly annuals up to 60 cm high with woody tap roots. Stems greenish; shortly stellate pubescent, densely armed with patent glabrous, yellow prickles up to 1 cm long. Leaves alternate, deeply lobed or pinnate, up to 10 cm long, 7 cm broad, on prickly petioles up to 5 cm long, lobes obtuse with broad sinuses, both surfaces yellowish green, sparsely to densely stellate pubescent, beset with yellow prickles especially on mid-rib and veins. Flowers in lateral racemes about 10 cm long, with prickly peduncles and pedicels, young calyx densely stellate pubescent, with small yellow prickles, corolla densely stellate pubescent outside, glabrous within, spreading to 1 cm in diameter, yellow. Fruits enclosed in enlarged, very prickly calyces, prickles yellow, up to 1-5 cm long, berries about 1 cm diameter, black, many-seeded. Seeds greyish-brown, compressed, 3 mm long, testas rugose and finely pitted.
Annual herb to c. 1 m high, green or grey-green, pubescent with stellate and minute glandular hairs; prickles to 1 cm long, abundant on most parts. Leaves ovate or ovate-oblong; lamina 2–10 cm long, 1–8 cm wide, concolorous, lobed; lobes obovate, the lower ones often forming leaflets; petiole to 5 cm long, decurrent. Inflorescence few–10–flowered; peduncle 15–30 mm long; rachis up to 6 cm long, pedicels 5–10 mm long. Calyx 6–10 mm long, enlarged in fruit; lobes narrowly triangular, 3–5 mm long. Corolla irregularly rotate, 30–40 mm diam., bright yellow. Four anthers 6–8 mm long, straight, the fifth 10 mm long, curved. Berry globular, 10 mm diam., drying blackish, skin papery. Seeds 2–2.5 mm long, dark brownish or black.
Stout, annual shrub, up to 1 m high, all parts with stellate and simple glandular hairs, except inside calyx and corolla. Prickles many, straight, narrow, up to 15 mm long, yellow. Leaves ovate, up to 150 x 70 mm, deeply 5-7-lobed or pinnate, lobes obtuse, sinuses broad, prickles mainly on midrib and veins; petioles up to 50 mm long. Inflorescence a lateral raceme, few-to ± 12-flowered, 100 mm long. Calyx: tube 3-4 mm long; lobes subulate, 3-5 mm long. Corolla rotate, lobes unequal, up to 30 mm in diam., yellow. Flowering time Feb, Mar. Fruit globose, ± 10 mm in diam.; inside enlarged, very prickly calyx, ± black. Seeds many, compressed, 3 mm long, grey-brown, rugose and finely pitted.
Coarse branching annual 3–10 dm, stellate-hairy throughout, the stems, cals, and to a lesser extent the lvs also beset with yellow spines 3–12 mm; lvs ovate or oblong in outline, deeply pinnately lobed, or the segments again lobed in larger lvs; racemes short-pedunculate, 3–15-fld, condensed at first, elongating to as much as 15 cm; fls light yellow, 2–3 cm wide; 4 anthers alike, yellow, the fifth much longer, curved, often purplish; cal accrescent and enclosing the berry; 2n=24. Dry prairies and plains; native to the Great Plains, now occasionally intr. throughout much of our range, especially westward.
Annual herb, up to 1.5 m high; densely spiny. Spines curved. Leaves with blade pinnatifid. Flowers: inflorescence lateral; calyx spiny, accrescent, enclosing berry; corolla 20-35 mm in diameter, yellow; Dec.-Mar. Fruit a black berry, 10-15 mm in diameter, densely spinescent.
