Asteraceae
This cheery yellow flower is easily in my top 5 most despised plants in the state of CA, which gained a foothold here sometime before 1869 and hails from southern Europe and western Eurasia. It's super pokey and stops me in my tracks while out hiking. I realized recently that I may have been mistaking another star-thistle tocalote for this yellow star-thistle, so I made a point to find it on the road outside the west entrance to Pinnacles National Park to take a closer look and these pictures. If only it weren't such a great reported butterfly nectar source...
