Medium to tall plant reaching 1.5 metres. Stems erect, sparsely prickly. Basal leaves form a rosette in the first year and are oval narrowing to a long stalk, hairy and toothed. Stem leaves are oval, short stalked with a basal pair of leaflets, often unequal. Flowerheads globose, 1.5 to 2 cm, the flowers whitish and with long, narrowly triangular bracts.

Prickly stems, small round flower heads, upper stem-leaves with stalks

A photo of the whole plant in habitat, showing flowers and upper leaves

Damp, shady habitats.

Flowers August and September.

Biennial.

Found mainly in England and eastern Wales, though not particularly common.

Infrequent and local in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi and Evans 1988) it was found in 8 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current checklist (Jeeves 2011) it is listed as Native; woodlands and shady streamsides; now scarce and most sites that remain are in the Leighfield forest area

It was on the 2011 VC55 Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011) but it does not meet the criteria for the current RPR (Hall and Woodward, 2022)