Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Asterales > Asteraceae > Silybum > Silybum marianum

Silybum marianum (Milk Thistle)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Silybum marianum has other common names include cardus marianus, milk thistle, blessed milkthistle, Marian thistle, Mary thistle, Saint Mary's thistle, Mediterranean milk thistle, variegated thistle and Scotch thistle. This species is an annual or biennial plant of the Asteraceae family. This fairly typical thistle has red to purple flowers and shiny pale green leaves with white veins. Originally a native of Southern Europe through to Asia, it is now found throughout the world.
View Wikipedia Record: Silybum marianum

Infraspecies

Silybum marianum marianum

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  When grown on nitrogen rich soils, especially those that have been fed with chemical fertilizers, this plant can concentrate nitrates in the leaves. Nitrates are implicated in stomach cancers.
Lifespan [2]  Biennial
Pollinators [2]  Bees
Structure [4]  Herb
Usage [2]  A good green manure plant, producing a lot of bulk for incorporation into the soil;
Height [2]  3.936 feet (1.2 m)
Width [2]  39 inches (1 m)
Light Preference [3]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [3]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [3]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [3]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Silybum marianum

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Golovinomyces cichoracearum[6]
Microbotryum silybum[6]
Puccinia calcitrapae[6]
Puccinia mariana[6]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 4Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0