Milk thistle, 30th of July 2017.

Even I, with my really limited botanical knowledge, could recognize milk thistle. However, my research and help from my Facebook friends revealed that things are not as simple as they seem. Often used classification name for milk thistle (which apparently includes several plants) is Silybum marianum, but the synonym is Carduus marianus L., where "L.", of course, stands for >> Carl Linnaeus. Carduus is a wide genus, which includes many plants considered as invasive, e.g. in Australia or USA. Carduus nutans is one of these and it produces bio-chemicals which harm the surrounding plants. In England and Scotland, it is known as musk or nodding thistle.

The "milk thistle" of mine is actually a subspecie of Carduus nutans, a special one - Carduus nutans subsp. micropterus (Borbás). The subspecie is recognizable by narrow leaves, very different from those of Carduus marianus. Micropterus is also endemic and is protected in Croatia. It is spread throughout ex-Yugoslavia, Albania and a part of Italy.

The image below does not show Micropterus but Silybum marianum, i.e. a "real" milk thistle. Note that its leaves are much wider than thos of Micropterus, although the flower looks reasonably similar - the thickened parts of the stem and the leaves just beneath the flower are different, however. Flower of Micropterus, besides looking beautifully, also has a beautiful, soft but strong scent. It also attracts bugs.

The milk thistle in the image below is from the book "Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz" (1885) by Otto Wilhelm Thome. I already wrote about the book in the posts on >> meadow buttercup and >> pear. For this post, I specially prepared the Thome's image from several remastered version on the internet.

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Last updated on 30th of July 2017.