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Echinops ritro, the southern globe thistle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to southern and eastern Europe, from Spain east to Turkey, Ukraine, and Belarus, and western and central Asia east to Mongolia. The species is also sparingly naturalised in scattered locations within North America.
It is a compact, bushy herbaceous perennial thistle, growing to 60 cm (24 in) tall, with broad prickly leaves and bearing globes of steel-blue flowers 2.5–4.5 cm in diameter, in late summer.
Echinops ritro and the subspecies E. ritro subsp. ruthenicus[7] have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Plants previously reported as naturalised in Great Britain are mostly or all the related species Echinops bannaticus.
