Funny what you find in your own backyard. My friends were helping me whack away at some pretty tall weeds when Pat remarked about some of these not-so-friendly-looking plants. He pointed to the one I was attacking with my shovel. "That's a milk thistle," he said. "I believe it's got some therapeutic value."
I commented how very interesting that was and kept whacking. But the next day I dug into some references materials. Sure enough, this spiny, purple-flowered plant has been used for thousands of years as a remedy for a variety of ailments, according to a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
According to Rational Phytotherapy, a classic, science-based guide to herbal medicine, that milk thistle I chopped to the ground is considered one of the few plant-based medicines to have undergone "state-of-the-art pharmacologic testing" and well-controlled research studies.
Milk thistle is a prickly member of the daisy family named for the whitish fluid that comes out of the leaves when crushed. Its fruit (which obviously comes from the seed, Pat reminded me) contains silymarin — a group of active compounds named from milk thistle's Latin name, Silybum marianum.
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