When I saw this coming up in our yard, I pointed it out, and asked Jon not to mow it.  He didn't and it bloomed!!!

 

It is Bull Thistle, Cirsium vulgare.  It grows all over roadsides, pastures, and waste places.  The seeds travel like dandelion seeds.  You know, like fairies on the breeze.  I'm sure that's how they got here, because we are neither a roadside, pasture, nor a waste place.

 

We see butterflies come for the nectar, and birds coming to eat the seeds.  Thistle is a favorite food for finches.  You probably buy it to fill your bird feeders.  Well, this is where those seeds come from:  Thistle.

 

I think it's pretty.  Our friends from Kansas call it a noxious WEED.  Each to his own.  I like it.  So do our birds.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!