Thistle

• The thistle is the national flower of Scotland, and features in many Scottish symbols and logos. Legend has it that a Viking attacker stepped on one at night and cried out, so alerting the defenders of a Scottish castle.
• The Thistle is a high performance racing dinghy, also used for day sailing, popular in the United States.
• Thistle is the common name of a number of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp spines on the margins, mostly in the plant family Asteraceae. Genera in the Asteraceae with the word thistle often used in their common names include:
• Arctium – Burdock
• Carduus – Thistle
• Carlina – Carline thistle
• Centaurea – Star thistle
• Cicerbita – Sow thistle
• Cirsium – Thistle
• Cynara – Artichokes, Cardoon thistle
• Echinops – Globethistle
• Onopordum – Cotton thistle
• Silybum – Milk thistle
• Sonchus – Sow thistle

Other unrelated plants sometimes called thistle include:

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• Salsola – Saltwort or Tumbleweed (family Amaranthaceae; sometimes called Russian thistle)

Thistle related Images and Photos (experimental)

Thistle	Thistle	Thistle	Thistle
Untitled (thistle)	Star Thistle	Purple Thistle	Cotton-Headed Thistle: Carduus Eriophorus circa 1772-82 (Paper Collage)
Close-Up of a Scottish Thistle Flower