Milk Thistle Herbal Complex

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Milk thistle (Latin - Silybum Marianum) is a member of the Asteraceae plant family and has many common names, including holy thistle, St. Mary thistle, and Marian thistle. The adjectives “holy, St. Mary, Marian and milk” have been assigned through a folklore that honors the symbolic association of the plant with the Virgin Mary. It is said that some drops of the Virgin Mary’s milk fell on the plant and became exhibited in the milk white veins of its leaves. Milk thistle is a stout annual or biennial plant outside of its native range, it is indigenous to the Mediterranean regions of Europe but is now widespread throughout the world. It is a tall, weedy plant with prickly stems and glossy dark green prickly leaves that have distinctive milk white veins. The plant produces colourful purple to pink thistle-like flower heads in the summer followed by small black shiny seeds, which are crowned with feathery tufts. Milk thistle is considered by farmers as a noxious weed, however European herbalists have revered it for more than 2,000 years as a sacred gift. Maud Grieve, a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society, wrote a popular book on herbal information in 1931 (A Modern Herbal) which quotes several early English herbalists on their love for, and use of milk thistle. The dried seeds of the herb are commonly used in herbal preparations