Carline Thistle Alcohol-Free Extract

Carline Thistle (Carlina acaulis), the stemless or silver thistle, is a perennial of the daisy family, Asteraceae, native to dry alpine pastures and limestone slopes in the mountains of central and southern Europe, from the Pyrenees and Alps to the Balkans. It forms a flat rosette of deeply cut, spiny, grey-green leaves pressed to the ground, with a single large flower head 5 to 12 centimeters across sitting in the center on almost no stem. The head is ringed by glossy, silvery-white, papery bracts that open in sunshine and fold inward in damp weather, so it is nailed to doors as a weather glass. We extract the dried root.