![]() ![]() After being bastardized by Latin, Kirsos becomes Cirsium. Goldfinches like the seeds, too.Ī tea can also be made from the leaves and the plant was used in ancient times to treat varicose veins, which in Greek is kirsos. ![]() The thistle, by the way, is also food for the larva of the American Painted Lady butterfly, Black Swallowtail, Delaware skipper, Palamedes Swallowtail, Palmetto Skipper), Three-Spotted Skipper, Twin-Spot skipper (What? No One-spotted skipper?) and other butterflies. Arlene Tryon, was to bring unopened thistle blossoms to school, hang them up, and watch them turn into cotton puffs. Now, it so happens that I went to school eight years in one-room school houses. When I was a boy growing up in southern Maine this thistle grew every year across the road from our house. horridulum, grows from from Maine south along the seacoast to Florida, west from South Carolina to Texas. All you need to be is observant, and hungry. Thistles can be found from valley bottoms to mountain tops. What is native? It can be found around the world and throughout North American and Canada, even in the arctic circle and Greenland, just like the mustard plant, chickweed and blackberries. The thistle, which is in the sunflower family, is often called an invasive weed even where it is native. Unopened Thistle Bud, photo by Green Deane The thistle’s flower is like a shaving brush when in bloom that then turns into a cottony ball of fluff. If by some outside chance you have misidentified the prickly Mexican poppy ( Argemone mexicana) for the thistle, the poppy has yellowish sap and flowers, white or yellow, with petals. Personally, I have never seen a yellow one. Incidentally, it’s shaving brush-shaped flowers can be purple or yellow. The down was used as guide feathers for arrows. That might require a remaking of the common phrase: I’ve got a thistle stuck in the thick of my tongue. And should you be in the wilderness with little but a thistle for protection, know the Seminole Indians made blowgun darts from the plant. Also, the seed fluff when dry is great tinder. ![]() Soaking the plant several days in water makes the threads available. The plant also grows fibrous as it ages - why we don’t eat older stalks - and can be used for cordage. I think the stalk boiled a few minutes and then served with butter, salt and pepper is absolutely delicious, for a green. Then you can eat it raw or cooked, I prefer cooked. Carefully peel the stalk of the fibrous coat, which is most of the green you’ll see. ![]() With heavy gloves and a trimmer I hold the plant upside down and cut off the leaves and sundry spines. I just use a long-handled shovel to cut them at the base above the rosette. Personally, I prefer the stalks of second year plants in spring, when they are a foot or so high. Of course, one should wear heavy gloves when working with thistles, and some people have contact dermatitis with thistles, so make sure first. (Or roast whole by a fire and squeeze the cooked core out.) The leaves are still edible if you strip them of spines as are the bottom of the flower buds, though the bud bottoms aren’t much more than a nibble. In the second year plant the inner core of the flower stalks is quite tasty and not that much work. Or said another way, there is no poisonous true thistle, but not all of them are palatable. All thistles in the genus Cirsium, and the genus Carduus, are edible. Rub the “wool” off and enjoy, raw or cooked. Just strip the green off the leaf leaving the very edible midrib. The leaves are edible but don’t even bother trying to cut off the spines. The first-year root and leaves are edible, but there isn’t much of a root for a while. Note the basal rosette, photo by Green Deane ![]()
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