soft thistle, Cirsium carolinianum

Thistles are beautiful! Except. When it's late in the season and they are partly going to seed. Or when you spend a while in a useless search for a good one. Or when you're walking that roadside because your car is stuck and your three hours into waiting for a tow? No, thistles are beautiful and interesting and I had to have this mush of an image. And now I see there's no specific lore about soft thistles. It's still the only one of its kind I've ever seen and I'm delightedly ambivalent about it. Soft thistles grow in AL, AR, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MO, MS, NC, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, and VA. Scioto Co OH, 10/2/21. Aster family, Asteraceae.