silybum marianum

Questions about silybum marianum

What does silybum marianum mean?

silybum marianum means "tall Old World biennial thistle with large clasping white-blotched leaves and purple flower heads; naturalized in California and South America".

What is another word for silybum marianum?

Close synonyms include milk thistle, lady's thistle, Our Lady's mild thistle, holy thistle, blessed thistle. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is silybum marianum a common word?

silybum marianum is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.