We’ve all seen Milk Thistle extract in health shops – it’s supposed to be good for the liver – but it’s much less common to see the actual plant that it’s extracted from. As the name suggests, it’s a variety of thistle (the French name is Chardon Marie) that grows to quite a height. This one was a good seven feet tall.

I found this example, which had obviously just released its seeds, in a herb garden in the nearby village of Montrol-Sénard.

Nikon D800 with Nikkor 24-70mm ƒ2.8 lens at 58mm. 1/000 at ƒ5.6 ISO 250. Cropped and edited in Lightroom.

Macro Moments Week 26