Echinops ritro

Echinops ritro.

The tinder thistle or haddock thistle is the species Echinops ritro, a plant of the Asteraceae family, native to central and southern Europe, western Asia and Siberia. Its basionym is Echinops ritro L.

Description

Plant with a cottony stem that reaches 10-40 cm in height. Bright green leaves deeply divided by narrow, sharp, spiny lobes. The blue colored flowers are tubular and are placed in spheres.

Uses

It contains flavonoids that give diuretic properties, it is also useful in facial paralysis and neuritis. Considered sudorific.

Curiosities

It is in the shape and finish of the leaves where we will best distinguish the differences between the species. (Detail is shown in the photo). Its termination is in a very sharp needle.

Echinops ruthenicus (Saratov)

Taxonomy

Echinops ritro was described by Carlos Linnaeus and published in Species Plantarum 2: 815. 1753.

Etymology

Echinops: generic name derived from the combination of two Greek words: hedgehog and vision (op = eye), this means that the plant resembles a hedgehog.

ritro: epithet that is nothing more than the Greek name of the plant.

Varieties

Only the subspecies of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands are collected:

• Echinops ritro var. the boresensis (Rech.f.) Parsa
• Echinops ritro meyeri (DC.) Kozuharov
• Echinops ritro ruthenicus (Bieb.) Nyman
• Echinops ritro sartorianus (Boiss. Heldr.) Kozuharov
• Echinops ritro siculus (Strobl) Greuter
• Echinops ritro thracicus (See) Kozuharov

Sinonimia

• Echinops ritro var. tenuifolius DC.
• Echinops tauricus Willd. ex Ledeb.
• Echinops tenuifolius Fisch. ex Schkuhr

Common names

• Castellano: Abbot, hedgehog head, old man's head, abbey card, blue card, plaster box, Montpellier crocodile.