Milk Thistle (Saint Mary’s Thistle)
Silybum marianum
Family: Asteraceae
Overwintering annual. Native to the Mediterranean. Giant shiny-leaved
plant with white variegations and towering, purple-flowered thistles.
Milk Thistle is grown for its seed, which is a unique hepato-protective
agent, containing among other flavonoids the much-touted silymarin.
The seed itself, ground up and added to food or made into an alcoholic
extract and taken internally, will help protect the liver from damage by
environmental toxins, poisons or disease. Cultivation: Easy.
Direct seed in the late summer or early spring. Space the plants
3 feet apart, and leave 5 feet between the villianously spiny leaves for
access to harvest the capitulae, which are armed with needles at
the tip of the bract. Seed for planting not for sale to WA state.
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