We have a large plant that is growing beside our house. It almost looks like a THISTLE plant. But it is so large that it almost looks like something else. Can anyone tell us as we aren't sure if that is a wild Flower or just a common weed.
Thanks for your input.

It may be this dude, or one of his close associates.
American Burnweed (Erechtites hieraciifolius)

This is a native plant BUT it spreads like a weed.

They do if allowed to drop seeds around. I like to leave this one until it looks like the pic, flowers not quite open yet, and then pull it. Comes up easily if the ground is not too dry and the juicy green stems are great additions to compost.

It looks like whut we call milkweed down here, if you break off a leaf milk runs out. Their spiney to, use gloves to pull'um up. When the flowers open up they look like a little white puff ball, kinda like a dandelion.

zeta7 said:It looks like whut we call milkweed down here, if you break off a leaf milk runs out. Their spiney to, use gloves to pull'um up. When the flowers open up they look like a little white puff ball, kinda like a dandelion.

@zeta7: Not milkweed (asclepias, in the Apocynaceae family) - the flowers are of an erechtites (family Asteraceae). Erechtites does not have milky sap.

Gardener2493, thank ya Ma'am....i tryed....

whut i wus talkin about looks sumthin like this, mamma always called it milkweed. I have milkweed for the monarch butterflys but it does'nt look anything like that.

zeta7 said:Gardener2493, thank ya Ma'am....i tryed....

Np :)

btw i'm not a "ma'am"...

zeta7 said:Gardener2493, thank ya Ma'am....i tryed....

whut i wus talkin about looks sumthin like this, mamma always called it milkweed. I have milkweed for the monarch butterflys but it does'nt look anything like that.

Oh, the plant in your photo? It is a wild lettuce - not a true milkweed.

In any case, the plant that was in the question is neither a lettuce nor a milkweed.

Ok, whut i wus mistaken fer the plant above is a Thistle. My bad.

Gardener2493 said:
Oh, the plant in your photo? It is a wild lettuce - not a true milkweed.

When referring to plants by their common or regional names, I'm not sure that anything can be called a "true" anything.

My mom was British and a lifelong gardener. She used to call some weedy plant "milkweed" that was neither Asclepias nor what Zeta posted. Last year on NGA there was an argument that got quite nasty between an American and a Brit gardener about what milkweed was. The misunderstanding could have been avoided if one of them had looked up the binomial designation.

NMoasis said:

When referring to plants by their common or regional names, I'm not sure that anything can be called a "true" anything.

My mom was British and a lifelong gardener. She used to call some weedy plant "milkweed" that was neither Asclepias nor what Zeta posted. Last year on NGA there was an argument that got quite nasty between an American and a Brit Gardener about what milkweed was. The misunderstanding could have been avoided if one of them had looked up the binomial designation.

There are many slang and regional names for plants, but IMHO, the most widely accepted definition is what I call a "true" variety of a plant. When I think of milkweed, I think of Asclepias because that is the most widely accepted definition of milkweed.

A search for "milkweed" in the plant database on this site brings up plants from at least a dozen genera:
https://garden.org/plants/sear...

Not as many possibilities as saying "daisy" but not as specific to a lot of people as being Asclepias-only. Nicknames are neither right nor wrong, just more or less popularly used.

The plant in the first picture looks like prickly lettuce aka wild lettuce. Lactuca scariola to be scientific about it. It's very common in the upper midwest. It can get 6 feet tall. The leaves do have a milky juice, but it's not what we call milkweed around here. It is an annual and reproduces by seed.

I guess both of you are right - "true" is not very accurate.

@hawkeye_daddy are you talking about the photo in the question? That is definitely not prickly lettuce.

@Gardener2493, yes I am. I would cite the publication Weeds of the North Central States as my reference material. Albert Lea is not that far away from where I live, and I've pulled a lot of prickly lettuce in my time.

hawkeye_daddy said:@Gardener2493, yes I am. I would cite the publication Weeds of the North Central States as my reference material. Albert Lea is not that far away from where I live, and I've pulled a lot of prickly lettuce in my time.

Zeta7's plant looks like prickly lettuce, the original ID plant doesn't look like what is called prickly lettuce around here.

Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola)

Thank you all for your input. I guess it is a weed. So will pull it soon!
We just know we DIDN'T plant it. BUT thought if it was a flower of some sort, we'd leave it as it continued to grow. But looks like it is just a weed and we don't need or want any of those.
Many thanks again for everyone's comments.