Blessed Milk Thistle  (Silybum marianum)

Milk thistle has been used for more than 2,000 years, primarily as a treatment for liver dysfunction.  Silybum is mentioned as a thistle-like medicinal plant as early as Pliny and in Dioscorides' Materia Medica. The name derives from the Greek meaning ‘tassel’ or ‘tuft’.  The species name marianum comes from the Latin and refers to a legend that the white spots on the leaves of this species of thistle came from the milk of the Virgin Mary nursing her child when fleeing to Egypt.