Evil Purple Flower

Hey there, a friend of mine sent me some pictures he took of this spiky purple flower that grows seasonally outside his house. He says the pics are from sometime in the summer, and it shows up once a year. The only name we have for it thus far is "The Evil Purple Flower".

Included are a few pictures. There's some more if they'll help, but I doubt it since they're mostly slight variations on the first and third shot. Thanks in advance for any help with this, for some reason it's driving me mad that I can't put a name to this. ^_^

 

Thistle (Cirsium).

 

Thank you! :D I didn't expect a response so fast. I guess evil flower isn't so evil... it's just... intimidating and scary... and evil... :P

 

It's evil if you back into it.

 

Also a prolific weed in certain places. I am having words with a large patch at the moment.

Liz

 

The "evil flower" looks very much like bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare). But I do not know whether there are lookalikes growing in Illinois.

 

i hated those, i grew up in southern illinois and they were everywhere