Canada Thistle is the bane of crop farming. Weed that this plant is, it grows tall and sharp, filled with spines and prickles. One weed identification book that I use says that this plant is capable of reducing crop yields by 100% due to an underground rhizome that grows below normal tillage depth.
Yet there is a beauty in the purple flower with its spiny bracts. Contrasted with green, the pink-purple blossom is a showy flower in August.
I photographed this thistle, shoulder high, while out for a walk. Then I took the image to my computer's darkroom and brought out the gray green background using sketching tools and some cropping and dodging. I rather like the result, even though the plant is basically a weed.
Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler
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