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National Invasive Species Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
  1. Home
  2. Terrestrial Invasives
  3. Terrestrial Plants
  4. Yellow Star Thistle

Yellow Star Thistle

Scientific Name

Centaurea solstitialis L. (ITIS)

Common Name

Yellow star thistle, geeldissel, golden star thistle, St. Barnaby's thistle, yellow centaury, yellow cockspur

Native To

Eurasia (Zouhar 2002)

Date of U.S. Introduction

1800s (Zouhar 2002)

Means of Introduction

Accidentally through contaminated seed (Zouhar 2002)

Impact

Crowds out native species; toxic to horses (Zouhar 2002)

Yellow Star Thistle

Yellow star thistle, flower

Credit

Photo by Cindy Roche

Source
Invasive.org.

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Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Council or Task Force
Partnership
Federal Government
State and Local Government
Academic
Professional
Citations

  • Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Centaurea solstitialis. [Accessed Sep 30, 2023].

  • Zouhar, K. 2002. Centaurea solstitialis. In: Fire Effects Information System. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory.