Eryngium species?

That's what I was thinking too, but I wanted to see what you all thought. Thanks! The eryngium seems to have more than just one flower at the top, where the teasels seem to have just one or only a few flowers at the top.

You should be aware that common teasel, Dipsacus fullonum, and cutleaf teasel, Dipsacus laciniatus, are both considered an invasive species in many areas of the country. So while collecting the dried seedheads - they make a great, dry floral display for indoors - is fine, I'd discourage planting any seeds :-)

Definitely Teasel, not Eryngium. The fullonum bit of their name comes from their use in the cloth industry.

Yep gardengal48, know about that

Fairly common in this area. The arts-and-crafts people love them for making a lot of neatsy-poo christmas ornaments and such,

It's not on the invasive species in my state, Virginia. It could be someday I guess, but it's not now. In regards to crafts, I've been getting into winter arrangements lately. Amazed at how many different colors, textures and shapes are all around you in winter that you can use to design jawdropping arrangements. They make great gifts because people don't get flowers as much in winter, and they last for months.

Not all official state invasive lists are complete by any means.

That's surprising. My experience is that, at least here in Virginia they are pretty proactive about slamming plants on the list as soon as they start to be problems. I don't recall ever having found any inaccuracies in the Virginia list when I've compared it to my personal experiences.

There are two possible reasons the plant is not on Virginia's list. One is that the plant is not invasive here due to the local climate and conditions. The other possible reason is that the plant has not yet proliferated to the point where it starts to be invasive.

Aood example of the climate and conditions thing is Nandina. Further south its highly invasive, and listed as such. Here in Virginia, it's not on our list at all, and that's because it's just simply not invasive here. I've had them for years now, and they are 100% well-behaved. They'll sow a seedling here and there, no more than that. It's not native. But it's not invasive.

It is a listed invasive in West Virginia and Georgia and in general by the US Parks Department. It is also shown as naturalized across much of VA and that is often the first step before it hits official lists. Naturalization is an indication the plant spreads aggressively and will grow easily under a range of conditions.

That's interesting about WV & GA. I didn't have a lot of doubt, given the type of plant it is, that it could easily become invasive here. Didn't know it was naturalized here, but that doesn't surprise me either given that I found it in the mountains here. I just looked at the distribution maps and it looks like it's at least present in most every state. However strangely, they don't even show it as present in Georgia at all. Go figure.

I wanted to see how invasive GA & WV consider Dipsacus. WV has it as a 2 out of 3 (1 being the highest threat). I didn't see it on Georgia's list. Which makes more sense given the distribution list. Interesting that VA doesn't even have it, but WV has it as it in its middle threat range. For fun I checked Maryland. D. fullonum is on their list, but D. sylvestris is. I didn't see any rankings on the Maryland list.

I meant D. laciniatus, the plant we're talking about, is NOT on the Maryland list. Neither is D. sylvestris but I may have seen they are synonyms, can't find it now.