Plants with Purpose - Thistledown Days

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Plants with Purpose - Thistledown Days

THERE ARE NO BUTTERFLIES, I decided in early August. Then suddenly swarms of them emerged. Many I noticed clustered on the thistles at the edge of the field, and the one my husband had admiringly left outside my greenhouse when he was “weeding” (thanks, Andrew!). This set me thinking – thistles can be a painful nuisance, yet maybe they are also an underused, nectar-rich beauty for the garden.

Putting aside the invasive if charming creeping thistles, there are several useful varieties fit for garden cultivation. Twice this year I sold out of the spiteful but beautifully veined Milk Thistle (Silybum marianum), venerated as a cleansing herb for the liver, whose large, spiky purple heads provide summer colour and, like all thistles, seeds for birds in autumn. It’s also called St. Mary’s Thistle, the white veins on the leaves being supposed to represent the Virgin’s milk.

Unsurprisingly, Milk Thistle gets confused with the yellow-flowered Holy, or Blessed Thistle (Cnicus benedictus). Once used to cure the plague and most everything else, its antiseptic and antibiotic properties have rendered it valuable in modern medicinal herbalism.

A kinder candidate for the garden might be the Melancholy Thistle (Cirsium helenium). Its leaves are smooth and silvery-backed, and the flowers are stately and very showy. It does not creep, either. It got its name as a remedy for sadness or melancholia – the herbalist Culpepper claimed it “makes a man merry as a cricket”! I think it’s gorgeous - it cheers me up to see it, anyway.

Another attractive yellow one is the Saffron Thistle (Carthamus tinctorius), valued as a dye plant similar to, but cheaper than, saffron, and traditionally used to colour the robes of Buddhist monks. It is also medicinal and the seeds contain a choice oil for cooking. Unfortunately it’s an annual – try Centaurea macrocephala if you want a similar-looking perennial.

A thistle that hugs the ground and provides delightful, lasting dried flowers for winter is the stemless Carline Thistle (Carlina acaulis). It also has medicinal properties, and the receptacles (the bit which all the florets are joined to) can be eaten just like globe artichokes.

Speaking of which – and going from the lowest to the highest, my globe artichokes are just bursting into flower above that incredible, silvery, architectural foliage. And the peacock butterflies, together with a gaggle of whites and tortoiseshells, are homing in on these fabulous and useful flowers.

Wildlife, medicine, dyes, food – and beauty. I rather think 2006 will be the year of the thistle…….

©Margaret Lear