''Eryngium campestre'', known as field eryngo, or Watling Street thistle, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of '' Eryngium'', which is used medicinally. A member of the family

Apiaceae Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants ...

, eryngo is a hairless, thorny

perennial plant A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

. The leaves are tough and stiff, whitish-green. The basal leaves are long-stalked,

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...

and spiny. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

of this plant are mined by the

gall fly A gall-inducing insect is any insect that can cause the growth of galls within plants. There are several groups of insects that meet this description. They include the gall wasps, scales, gall midges, aphids, psyllids and certain species of le ...

, ''

Euleia heraclei ''Euleia heraclei'', known as the celery fly or the hogweed picture-wing fly is a species of tephritid or fruit flies in the genus '' Euleia'' of the family Tephritidae. Distribution This species is widespread in most of Europe (Austria, Belgiu ...

''.

Description

''Eryngium campestre'' is a stiff, hairless, prickly perennial plant. It resembles the better known sea holly (''Eryngium maritimum''), but is taller and less robust, and the stem and leaves are paler and not bluish-green. The palmate leaves have more slender lobes which are tipped with spines, and the bracts below the flower heads are slender. The stems are thinner, the branches are longer and the globular flower heads are white and much smaller than the sea holly. This plant flowers between July and September.

Distribution and habitat

''Eryngium campestre'' has a mainly Central and Southern Europe distribution, north to Germany and Holland. It is common in many places but in Germany it is restricted to dry habitats near the Rivers

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

and

Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...

. It is very uncommon in dry grassland on neutral or calcareous soils in the southeast of the British Isles, having first been recorded in 1662 by the naturalist

John Ray John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after ...

in Devon. It has statutory protection in Somerset and Devon and is persisting in several sites there, but elsewhere it is mostly a short-lived casual of waste ground, road verges and rough pastures.

Uses

Used in herbalism as an infusion to treat coughs,

whooping cough Whooping cough, also known as pertussis or the 100-day cough, is a highly contagious bacterial disease. Initial symptoms are usually similar to those of the common cold with a runny nose, fever, and mild cough, but these are followed by two or ...

and urinary infections. Roots were formerly candied as sweets or boiled and roasted as a vegetable. The plants active constituents are essential oils,

saponin Saponins (Latin "sapon", soap + "-in", one of), also selectively referred to as triterpene glycosides, are bitter-tasting usually toxic plant-derived organic chemicals that have a foamy quality when agitated in water. They are widely distributed ...

tannin Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term ''tannin'' (from Anglo-Norman ''tanner'', ...

References

External links

USDA Plants: ''Eryngium campestre''
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120826182006/http://www.tela-botanica.org/eflore/BDNFF/4.02/nn/25380 Distribution Map of ''Eryngium campestre'' in continental France (Telebotanica) {{Taxonbar, from=Q839771 campestre Flora of Europe Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora of Lebanon