The thistle

Colin Smale takes a look at a commonly found wild plant, characterised by sharp points on its leaves and purple flowers which attract birds and insects.

As children we quickly learned not to touch thistles because their sharp spines can be pretty painful.

However, it is so easy to throw just a casual glance at a thistle as you walk by, but take a closer look and see what a stunning bloom it really is when in its prime.

Here you see in glorious close-up a newly emerged bloom of the spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare), with its pollen pods untouched as yet by the bees.

Tomorrow the bees, moths, beetles and a large variety of flies will have descended on the flower to feed on this rich source of nectar and those star-like pollen sacs that give it such beauty now will be gone.

n the UK we have at least five more species of thistle: the marsh thistle, creeping thistle, the meadow thistle, musk thistle and the slender thistle, but this spear thistle is the one we are most familiar with here in Lincolnshire.

A banquet for wildlife
While looked upon by wildlife such as birds and insects as a delicious banquet, the thistle is not greeted with the same enthusiasm by landowners, who will often walk over a field with a long sharp knife and lop the plant down. There is even an Act of Parliament still in force (the Weeds Act 1959) which can allow authorities to enter land and enforce the eradication of this so-called ‘weed’.

However, what better sight as the seasons change than a charm of goldfinches flocking to the seeding thistles filling the surrounding air with those tiny cloud-white parachutes?

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