Comments on: The Thistle Tribe http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008/07/18/the-thistle-tribe/ Tue, 21 May 2013 19:49:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Deirdre Larkin http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008/07/18/the-thistle-tribe/comment-page-1/#comment-38 Deirdre Larkin Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:24:16 +0000 http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/?p=34#comment-38 Hello, Nicole--- We don't always know whether a plant used medicinally or otherwise was cultivated or gathered from the wild. I would very much doubt that cotton thistle was grown as a garden plant. I do not have any specific information as to whether it was a physic plant of any consequence in the Middle Ages, although the Roman natural historian Pliny refers to an Onopradon that is both diuretic and costive. (Historia Naturalis, Book XXVII, LXXXVII, ll. 115-116.) Hello, Nicole—

We don’t always know whether a plant used medicinally or otherwise was cultivated or gathered from the wild. I would very much doubt that cotton thistle was grown as a garden plant. I do not have any specific information as to whether it was a physic plant of any consequence in the Middle Ages, although the Roman natural historian Pliny refers to an Onopradon that is both diuretic and costive. (Historia Naturalis, Book XXVII, LXXXVII, ll. 115-116.)

]]> By: Nicole DeRushie http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008/07/18/the-thistle-tribe/comment-page-1/#comment-34 Nicole DeRushie Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:24:10 +0000 http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/?p=34#comment-34 Cotton thistle is one of my favorite "weeds", one which generally gets a stay of execution when it pops into the yard for its impressive form and colours, so striking against everything that grows around it. Would this thistle have been intentionally cultivated in garden spaces in the Middle Ages, or left to be enjoyed on the fringes and in the fields where they grew naturally? During a project a couple of years ago, when assembling a plant list for a medieval garden at a local botanical garden, I was reminded to leave off all but a very select few plants that would also have grown natively in the countryside, such as Primula vulgaris, as these were not desirable in a formal garden space. Cotton thistle is one of my favorite “weeds”, one which generally gets a stay of execution when it pops into the yard for its impressive form and colours, so striking against everything that grows around it.
Would this thistle have been intentionally cultivated in garden spaces in the Middle Ages, or left to be enjoyed on the fringes and in the fields where they grew naturally? During a project a couple of years ago, when assembling a plant list for a medieval garden at a local botanical garden, I was reminded to leave off all but a very select few plants that would also have grown natively in the countryside, such as Primula vulgaris, as these were not desirable in a formal garden space.

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