Ruderal awakening

Meet Cirsium arvense, a thistle species that's native throughout Europe and northern Asia, but it has become so at home here that one of its common names is Canadian Thistle.  Creeping Thistle seems to be the standard name.

It is considered a noxious weed in these here United States.  It is also a "ruderal species," which is a plant species that is first to colonize disturbed lands.  This plant was growing along a combination of railroad cut (currently a bicycle rail trail below Masontown) and what I believe to be a gas line.