According to local restorationist Glen Schnieder  “the native cobweb thistle (Cirsium occidentale) is one of the great beauties of the drying time.” I’d have to agree. I took a side trip out to his project(s) at Skyline Gardens in mid-June to sit with the glorious magenta blooms in the afternoon light. As I perched on the ground with several flowering cobweb thistles around me at nose height admiring the amazing transformation Glen and his gang of volunteers have wrought in that area, I got to see close up and seemingly very personal the local hummingbird stop by to sip nectar. Being from the composite or aster family the flower that we so admire is, on closer inspection, composed of many florets. In the case of the thistle there are no ray …
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