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Eryngium campestre
Also called Watling Street Thistle, Eryngo, Sea Holly, White Devil
Field eryngo is a hardy, spiny, greyish-green perennial in the carrot family, native across southern Europe, North Africa and into Western Asia. It thrives in full sun and very well-drained, dry soil.
Eryngium campestre, known as field eryngo, or Watling Street thistle, is a species of Eryngium, which is also used medicinally. A member of the carrot family Apiaceae, it is a hairless, greenish perennial plant with tough spiny leaves.
It is common in many places of its range but in Germany it is restricted to dry habitats near the Rivers Rhine and Elbe. In the British Isles it is very uncommon in dry grassland on neutral or calcareous soils in the southeast, having first been recorded in 1662 by the naturalist John Ray 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.
It is used in herbalism as an infusion to treat coughs, whooping cough and urinary infections. Roots were formerly candied as sweets or boiled and roasted as a vegetable. The plant's active constituents are essential oils, saponins, tannins.
Amethyst Eryngo · Spiritweed · Giant sea holly · Sea-holly · Giant Sea Holly · Button eryngo · Eryngo
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Eryngium campestre by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
