A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1190 entries
thistle
A thistle is a plant of the daisy family armed with spines on its leaves, stems, and often the flower head, carrying tight brushes of tubular florets in purple, pink, or yellow and setting seed with a parachute of fine hairs. Several hundred species grow across the northern hemisphere. Goldfinches and linnets feed on the seed, and the down was collected for stuffing.
Etymology
The word is Old English and has relatives across the Germanic languages, and its further origin is not settled. It is one of the small set of very old plant names that arrived in English with the language itself, alongside oak, ash, birch, and nettle, which is a fair indication of which plants mattered.
Notes
The thistle became the emblem of Scotland on a story that has never been documented: that a Norse raiding party attacking at night trod barefoot on one, cried out, and gave the alarm. The Order of the Thistle takes the motto nemo me impune lacessit, nobody provokes me with impunity, which is the plant’s argument stated in Latin.