Gundelia or tumble thistle[3][4][5] is a low to high (20–100 cm) thistle-like perennial herbaceous plant with latex, spiny compound inflorescences, reminiscent of teasles and eryngos, that contain cream, yellow, greenish, pink, purple or redish-purple disk florets.

[6] The plant develops a woody, vertical rootstock of up to 4 cm in diameter, at the surface usually covered by the remains of old leaves.

[4][3] The stem divides into ten or more branches, each of which is topped by a compound spiny ovoid inflorescence of 4–8 cm in diameter, which may be covered in dense arachnoid hairs.

This inflorescence is unusual for members of the family Asteraceae, as each true flowerhead is so far reduced as to only contain one floret, which is surrounded by its own involucre.

[citation needed] The involucral bracts of the secondary flowerheads are merged into a brown, durable, hard cup with a fibery fringe.

These parts sit on an inferior ovary that grows into an indehiscent fruit in which only one seed develops (a so-called cypsela).

All florets (in this case only one) are set on a common base (the receptacle), and are surrounded by several rows of bracts, that form an involucre.

[3] Tumble thistles are assigned to the Cichorieae-tribe that shares anastomosing latex canals in both root, stem and leaves, and has flower heads only consisting of one type of floret.

[citation needed] Warionia and Gundelia share a thistle-like appearance, anastomosing latex-ducts, floral heads that only contain disk florets, spurred anthers, and styles with branches and highest part of the scape covered with long hairs.

Warionia is a shrub, has many dandelion-yellow florets in each flowerhead, single or with two or three together at the end of the branches, the leaves dentate but not spiny.

[9][10] Scolymus is also a thistle-like herbaceaceous perennial with anastomosing latex-ducts, related to Gundelia, but it has many yellow, orange or white ligulate florets in each flowerhead, which are arranged with many in a spike-like inflorescence, or with a few at the end of the stems.

[citation needed] Gundelia contains several essential oils, with large proportions (20–25% each) of thymol and germacrene-D.[11] As far as known, the tumble thistle was first collected during an expedition by Leonhard Rauwolf (1573–1575), and this specimen can now be found in the National Herbarium in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Tournefort, Von Gundelsheimer and Claude Aubriet also collected this plant while traveling through Greece, Turkey, former Armenia and Persia (1700–1702).

Next, George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1873 placed the species in the tribe Arctotideae, subtribe Gundelieae (corrected name Gundelinae).

[13] Gundelia grows on limestone, igneous rock or reddish soils, in steppe, open oak or pine woodland, or between coppices, as weed in barley- or cornfields, fallowed or deserted fields, and in roadsides.

[4] Another dish is to put a trimmed inflorescence in a meatball, fry these in olive oil and then simmer them in a sauce containing lemon juice.

[3] A chewing gum can be made from the latex, a fact that is already mentioned by Tournefort in 1718, and is called "kenger sakızı" in Turkish.

Remains of charred inflorescences of Gundelia from the neolithic found in Turkey and Iraq indicate that oil was pressed from the seeds as long as at least 10,000  years ago.

[citation needed] Fully grown foliage is used to feed livestock in spite of the spines, both fresh (in Syria and Palestine) and dry (in Kurdistan and Iran).