Those prickly leaves that scratch your ankles while you are walking through a meadow are Field Eryngo (Eryngium campestre).
It is easy to recognise, the wax coating that protects the leaves
against summer heat gives the plant its typical green-bluish hue.It looks like a thistle, a prickly plant with flowers in heads. But no, it does not belong to the family of Asteraceae like other thistles (and the dandelion and the daisy), but to the Apiaceae. Members of this family have flowers in umbels, as you can see in wild carrots and fennel.
In the Field Eryngo the stalks under each flower have so much shortened you don't see them any more. Bracts form a ring under the flowers.