Milk thistle

Milk thistle Overview

A genus of annuals, perennials with the occasional shrub in the dandelion tribe of the sunflower family. They are native to the Canary Islands but the annual herbaceous varieties have naturalised widely because of their prolific wind-borne seeds and are now commonplace in temperate regions. Some of the more shrubby varieties are cultivated for their tall stems, up to 2m, and are often grown in pots in Mediterranean planting schemes and overwintered under glass to protect them from frost.