Native Thistles

This is a native thistle called elk or meadow thistle. It is a good wild plant particularly useful to pollinators.

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I tugged hard on the huge musk thistle with gloved hands, but it wouldn’t budge. I stood and removed the foot-long blade I save for just such occasions and gave the stem a whack near ground level. The thistle toppled like a felled redwood and I moved on to the next one. Later that day, I sprayed a patch of Canada thistle with weedkiller, and I have my eye on a thistle along Highway 20 that may be a plumeless thistle and it is going to die as well.

Those thistles mentioned, along with bull and Scotch thistle and several others, are all invasive aliens capable of crowding out native species over vast tracts of habitat and they get no sympathy from me. My motto is, “take no guff, cut no slack, whack’em, stack’em and don’t look back” and I do that whenever I get the chance, especially on public land.

However, I need to approach my own motto with a bit of caution as there are native thistles (members of the Cirsium genus) that provide many benefits to wildlife and are not invasive, just part of the natural ensemble of wildflowers.

How do you tell a native from an invasive thistle? That is a really good question, one that even the experts delight in arguing over. This is a really polymorphic group and according to one resource, “are apparently evolutionary works in progress.” There is a lot of overlapping and gradations of characteristics. That often makes identifying an individual species a job for real professionals, if even they can straighten it out. There are several guides on the internet though. You can start with this one if you are interested:  https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/16-029_01_XercesSoc_Native-Thistles-Conservation-Guide_web.pdf .

There are a couple of things though that can help you decide if a plant is a native or not. First, while all thistles are armored with prickles, the natives often have fewer, sometimes only along the margins of the leaves. Stems are fairly commonly described as soft, without prickles. The invasives typically cannot be handled without gloves. While that isn’t a rock-solid rule, this other one will tend to help. The majority of the natives are just a small part of the plant community. They are not “weedy”, tending to take over large areas of habitat like, say, bull or Canada thistle do. You may find several plants, but not a monoculture. Of course, every monoculture starts with one plant, so some caution needs to be applied. Finally, many of the natives only flower once and therefore tend to have larger flowerheads. Musk thistle (Carduus nutans) also has a large flower, so this one is not a perfect rule either, and perennials will have smaller flowers.

There is one native thistle species that we commonly see around the Western US and Canada, up into Alaska. This is called elk thistle or meadow thistle, Cirsium scariosum. Even this plant is highly variable—there are eight recognized subspecies that can vary in height (for instance) from ground level to six feet tall—but for the most part is still recognizable as elk thistle. It is particularly partial to wet meadow habitat, but can be found in drier habitats as well. A typical elk thistle has a thick stalk, looks very “hairy”, and will have a cluster of flowers at the top of the plant. The first-year rosette has many leaves and again, a “hairy” appearance.

Elk thistle also has another name, Evert’s thistle. This is because when Truman Evert got separated from the 1870 Washburn Yellowstone exploration party, he lost his glasses and could not see well enough to hunt (I can relate). Until he was found a month later, he subsisted on the roots of this thistle.

Native thistles definitely don’t deserve the reputation often afforded indiscriminately to all thistles. While a “take no prisoners” attitude is appropriate with the invaders, native thistles deserve our respect.

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Help Idaho Wildlife

When we traveled across the state in October 2017, most of the vehicles we saw using the wildlife management areas did not have wildlife plates. Buying wildlife plates is a great way for non-hunters and hunters alike to support wildlife-based recreation like birding.

C'mon folks, let's help Idaho's wildlife by proudly buying and displaying a wildlife license plate on each of our vehicles! 

See below for information on Idaho plates. Most states have wildlife plates so if you live outside Idaho, check with your state's wildlife department or vehicle licensing division for availability of state wildlife plates where you live. 

And tell them that you heard about it from Nature-track.com!

Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.