Melancholy Thistle

Bees feasting on the flowerhead of a Melancholy Thistle, Cirsium heterophyllum.

There were in fact four bees on the flowerhead when I took this photo, although only three are actually visible in this capture.

A neighbour once explained to us why the plant had such an odd name: according to her, people once thought the flowers must be sad and lonely being just one to a stem, rather than many of them being clustered together in a sociable manner as in other species of thistle.

The plant's entry on ukwildflowers.com gives quite another explanation:

'This thistle has no spines and is always a such a magnificent sight that folk of the old days reasoned that such a splendid flower could be a cure for sadness.

'Nicholas Culpepper in 1669 remarked that "The decoction of the thistle in wine, being drunk, expels superfluous Melancholy out of the body and makes a man as merry as a cricket".'