Essence of the plant:

Wild cardoon has only recently been rediscovered as a medicinal plant and its healing potencies are therefore only incompletely described. According to its expression, it is designed to firmly reject everything that does not belong to the center. On all parts of the plant it shows a strong relation to the center. For example, the leaf shells, which are mostly filled with rainwater and grow around the central shoot axis, form a highly effective climbing barrier against all ground animals. The central vein of the leaves is covered with numerous spines on the underside. The central, uppermost flower head is the largest among all flower heads. The retreating gesture is associated with an expression of movement from the inside to the outside, especially in the flower heads. Accordingly, the flowers of the ovate flower head begin to bloom first in the center in the form of a ring. When they fade, the neighboring flowers sprout, so that the flower wave moves to the poles as a double ring. Although cardoon means "thistle," it is not a member of the thistle family, but forms its own botanical class. Unlike thistles, its spines are not so much an expression of aggressive defense against possible external attacks - the flower spines, for example, are much too soft for that - but of a just decisive pushing out of what is not its own.