Thistle Meaning: “No One Harms Me With Impunity,” Five Victorian Meanings and a Scottish Species Botanists Still Debate
Thistle meaning: a Latin warning on Scotland’s badge, five Victorian dictionary meanings, a disputed species and why Canada thistle is a US noxious weed.
In short
- Thistle meaning: modern guides read defiance and protection, and the Order of the Thistle’s motto is “Nemo me impune lacessit” (“No one harms me with impunity”).
- Four Victorian flower dictionaries give the thistle five meanings, from austerity to retaliation.
- Botanists still debate which thistle is Scotland’s.
- Checked against: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the royal household, Greenaway (1884), Utah State University Extension.
Thistle meaning, in one line: modern flower guides such as Thursd (defiance) and Euroflorist (protection) read the thistle as a plant that defends itself, and the Latin motto of Scotland’s Order of the Thistle, Nemo me impune lacessit, is a warning in that vein, which the royal household translates as “No one harms me with impunity.” The thistle is Scotland’s emblem, a symbol of Nancy and Lorraine in France, and one of the plants named in the curse on the ground in Genesis. The older record is narrower than those two modern words. Four Victorian flower dictionaries give the thistle five different meanings across their entries and indexes, botanists still debate which species Scotland means, and sources date the Order of the Thistle four different ways. Scotch, milk and Canada thistle are three common thistle names, and they are three different plants. Canada thistle is a noxious weed in US states such as Ohio and Washington.
This page is part of our flower symbolism and meaning guide. Where sources disagree, such as on when the Order of the Thistle began, the disagreement is shown rather than smoothed over, and folklore is labelled as folklore.
What does the thistle mean?
The thistle means different things in different traditions, and the evidence behind each one differs too.
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| Tradition | What the thistle stands for | What it rests on |
|---|---|---|
| Scotland | A warning to attackers: “No one harms me with impunity” | The motto of the Order of the Thistle; in William Dunbar’s poem of 1503 the thistle is guarded by a bush of spears (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) |
| Lorraine, France | The same warning: “Qui s’y frotte, s’y pique” (touch it and you get pricked) | Nancy’s coat of arms is a thistle under the arms of Lorraine; the first motto, “Nul ne s’y frotte,” is recorded at the end of the 16th century (City of Nancy, in French) |
| Christianity, all thistles | Hardship and toil, the curse on the ground | Genesis 3:18, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee” (King James Bible) |
| Christianity, milk thistle | The Virgin Mary’s milk, the story behind the white leaf veins | A tradition recorded in Folkard’s Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics (1884); the RHS lists “Our Lady’s thistle” among the plant’s common names |
| Victorian flower dictionaries | Austerity, misanthropy, retaliation, sternness, independence | Four books of 1869 to 1884, set out in the Victorian section below |
Read together, the Scottish, Lorraine and Victorian entries share one idea, a warning that whoever touches the plant gets hurt. The Christian entries run the other way, towards hardship and a story about Mary’s milk. For other blooms read as strength, see our guide to flowers that symbolize strength, which includes the thistle.
Scotland’s thistle: what the motto, the legend and the record say
The Order of the Thistle’s Latin motto is Nemo me impune lacessit, and its English translation varies from source to source. The royal household gives “No one harms me with impunity.” Tyas’s Language of Flowers of 1869 gives “No one annoys me with impunity,” and calls it “a very suitable motto for Scotchmen in the days when the warlike spirit of their race was fully developed.” Thursd prints “No one provokes me with impunity.” Historic UK gives “No-one harms me without punishment” and adds that the motto is more commonly rendered in Scots as “Wha daurs meddle wi me.”
The tradition about how the thistle became Scotland’s emblem is a night-attack story. Historic UK says most versions date from the reign of Alexander III and the Battle of Largs in 1263. In its telling, a Norwegian force under King Haakon landed at Largs in Ayrshire, and the Norsemen took off their shoes to creep up on the sleeping Scots. One of Haakon’s men trod on a thistle and shrieked, the cry woke the Scots, and they rose and fought off the invaders.
Folkard collected a different version in 1884. In his account the invaders were Danes, no battle is named, and the thistle was adopted as Scotland’s symbol together with the motto in homely Scots, “Wha daur meddle wi’ me?”
Both versions are tradition, and the dated evidence starts about two centuries after Largs. J. Ingram, quoted in an 1884 New York flower dictionary, found no proof of the thistle as Scotland’s symbol earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century. Historic UK dates the first use of the thistle as a royal symbol of Scotland to silver coins of James III in 1470. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh dates Dunbar’s poem The Thrissil and the Rois to 1503, written for the marriage of James IV, the thistle, to Margaret Tudor, the rose. In the poem the thistle is “so able for the weiris” (“so able for the wars”) and “kepit with a busche of speiris,” which the RBGE glosses as guarded by a bush of spears.
The Order of the Thistle: four founding stories
The Order of the Thistle is Scotland’s order of chivalry, and sources date its founding four different ways:
- 809: King Achaius founded it in an alliance with Charlemagne. The royal household calls this a legend.
- The 15th century: James III founded it, according to Historic Environment Scotland. The royal household says an order under James III “may” have existed.
- 1540: James V created it for himself and twelve of his knights, according to Historic UK, which introduces the story with “It is said.”
- 1687: James VII of Scotland, James II of England, gave it a statutory foundation, according to the royal household. The RBGE also dates it to 1687.
St Giles’ Cathedral reconciles the stories by saying the order has roots in the Middle Ages but the present-day order was largely created in 1687. The royal household says James VII set it up to reward Scottish peers who backed his political and religious aims. St Giles adds that the nave of Holyrood Abbey was adapted as its chapel, the Edinburgh mob ransacked the abbey in 1688, and the knights had no chapel of their own for over 200 years.
The Thistle Chapel, designed by Robert Lorimer and finished in 1911, has stalls for the 16 knights, the Sovereign’s stall and two Royal stalls. Tyas and Folkard both describe the order’s insignia as a gold chain or collar of thistles interlaced with rue. Folkard also records the story that Achaius founded the order after a victory over Athelstan.
Which thistle is Scotland’s? Cirsium or Onopordum
Scotland’s thistle has no single agreed species. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh says the exact identity of the “Scotch Thistle” remains a subject of debate, and names two leading candidates: Cirsium vulgare, the spear thistle, and Onopordum acanthium, the cotton or Scotch thistle. Both belong to the Asteraceae, the daisy family that our Asteraceae guide explains.
| Feature | Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare) | Cotton or Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium) |
|---|---|---|
| Status in Scotland | Native and abundant | Not native; introduced in the 16th century and naturalised in many parts of the country |
| Height | Up to 1.5 m (5 ft) | Up to 3 m (about 10 ft), according to the RBGE |
| Stem | Spiny, winged and green | Spiny and winged, grey-green from a dense layer of woolly hairs |
| Flower | Up to 5 cm, reddish-purple | Up to 6 cm across, pale pink to purple |
The RBGE’s comparison, above, puts the two apart by size, stem and flower. The RBGE adds that Onopordum gained prominence as the “Scotch Thistle” after Sir Walter Scott chose it as the emblem for King George IV’s visit to Scotland in 1822.
Old thistle carvings and prints do not settle the question. A 1981 study in the Glasgow Naturalist by Agnes Walker and J. H. Dickson, described by the RBGE, examined thistle iconography on Scottish objects. It found the genus easier to identify than the species, and thistle designs often combine features of several genera and species. The RBGE concludes that the “Scotch Thistle” may have been an amalgamation of several plants rather than one.
Folkard lists the candidates a Victorian reader would have met. He says the thistle of Scotland is believed to be Onopordum acanthium, that some consider the stemless thistle (his Onicus acaulis) the true one because it fits the Norsemen legend and appears on a gold bonnet-piece of James V, and that others suppose Carduus acanthoides or Carduus nutans. Tyas headed his thistle entry Carduus nutans, a species whose flower heads often nod, according to Utah State University Extension. Folkard also says the milk thistle is sometimes called the Scotch thistle “but it is not so.”
US names add a layer. Utah State University Extension uses “Scotch thistle” for Onopordum acanthium, and Ohio State University’s guide to noxious weeds calls Cirsium vulgare bull thistle. A US gardener who reads about Scotland’s “spear thistle” is reading about the plant Ohio State calls bull thistle.
The Victorian thistle: five meanings in four books
Four Victorian flower dictionaries, entries and indexes together, give the thistle five different meanings: austerity, misanthropy, retaliation, sternness and independence.
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→ View My Garden Calendar| Book | Entry | Meaning given |
|---|---|---|
| Greenaway, Language of Flowers (1884) | Thistle, Common; Thistle, Fuller’s; Thistle, Scotch | Austerity; misanthropy; retaliation |
| Tyas, The Language of Flowers (1869) | The Thistle (Carduus nutans) | Sternness |
| New York dictionary (1884), The Language of Flowers, Including Floral Poetry | Thistle, headed “Independence”; vocabulary list: Thistle, Common; Thistle, Fuller’s; Thistle, Scotch | Independence; its vocabulary list gives austerity and independence (common), misanthropy (fuller’s) and retaliation (Scotch) |
| Flora’s Pocket Dictionary (1870) | Thistle, Common (“Emblem of Scotland”), plus index entries | Austerity; its index also files independence, sternness, retaliation (Scotch thistle) and misanthropy (fuller’s thistle) under the thistle |
Greenaway gives misanthropy to teasel and fuller’s teasel as well as fuller’s thistle, and retaliation only to the Scotch thistle. The New York dictionary heads its thistle entry “Independence” and says there is “some little doubt as to how this flower was first adopted by the Scots.” Flora’s also contains a parlour game, The Floral Oracle, in which each player draws a flower by lot and its meaning typifies the character of a future husband or wife. A drawn thistle means a surly one, and in the game’s profession round a thistle means a soldier. The New York book has its own version, in which the thistle is “patriotic” and the lover is “a Scotchman, and a soldier.”
Some modern guides say the Victorians used the thistle for something else. SymbolSage says the thistle “was known as the flower of intrusion or used as a warning against unwanted meddling” in Victorian times. We searched the full text of all four books and found none of the words “intrusion,” “meddle,” “defiance” or “protection” in a thistle entry. The Victorian entries use the words listed above, and defiance and protection come from modern guides.
Lorraine’s thistle: the same warning in French
The City of Nancy says the city’s coat of arms is a thistle under the full arms of Lorraine. After the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the city says, the use of the thistle as the emblem of Duke René II multiplied, and Lorrainers later made the emblem their own. Letters patent of Duke Charles III gave the arms to the city in 1575.
The motto is where the stories part. The City of Nancy says the first motto, “Nul ne s’y frotte,” appears at the end of the 16th century and was later replaced by the Latin “Non inultus premor,” which translates as “Qui s’y frotte, s’y pique.” Two commercial pages place the motto at or just after 1477. A chocolate maker’s history page, Chardons Lorrains, says René II adopted the thistle on 5 January 1477 after his victory over Charles the Bold and added “Ne toquès mi, je poins,” which became “Qui s’y frotte, s’y pique.” Vessière frères, another commercial page, says he added the motto after the battle.
The two commercial pages also disagree on who brought the thistle to Lorraine. The chocolate maker names René I of Anjou, and Vessière frères names Louis I of Anjou in the 14th century. This guide treats the City of Nancy’s page as the dated source and the two commercial pages as tradition.
Milk thistle: the Christian thistle
In Genesis 3:18 thistles are part of the curse on the ground, and Folkard reads the thistle as a portion of the curse passed on Adam when he became a tiller of the soil. The milk thistle (Silybum marianum) has its own Christian tradition. Folkard records that the white veins on its leaves were supposed to come from drops of the Virgin Mary’s milk falling on them as she nursed the infant Jesus.
The common names carry the story. The RHS lists blessed Mary’s thistle, Our Lady’s thistle and St Mary’s thistle among them, and describes a biennial rosette of large, spiny dark green leaves with prominent white veins. The legend is a tradition, and the white veins are a feature of the plant.
Milk thistle is also promoted as a dietary supplement, which is a medical question rather than a symbolic one. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) says milk thistle was historically used for liver disorders and to increase breast milk production, and that there is not enough high-quality evidence to reach definite conclusions about its effects on health conditions in people.
Scotch, milk and Canada thistle side by side
The three plants are easiest to separate by leaf and stem, and none is native to North America.
| Plant | Telltale features | Where it comes from | Status in the US |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium) | Woolly blue-gray leaves; stems with spiny wing-like growths, up to 12 ft (about 3.7 m) according to Utah State University Extension; upright purple-pink flower heads often more than 1 in across | Eurasia; probably introduced to North America in the late 19th century | Invasive weed, according to Utah State University Extension |
| Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) | Spiny dark green leaves with prominent white veins; purple flower heads with spiny bracts in the second year; 1 to 1.5 m (about 3 to 5 ft) | Mediterranean and south-west Europe to Afghanistan; introduced to North America by early colonists | Widespread in California pastures and disturbed ground; Cal-IPC rating: Limited |
| Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) | Spiny-edged leaves on a grooved stem with no spines; lavender flower heads, ½ to ¾ in (Washington) or about 1 in (Ohio State) | Europe and Asia | Noxious weed: Washington Class C since 1988, and listed among Ohio’s noxious weeds |
Among these three, the quickest field test is the stem and leaf: white-veined leaves point to milk thistle, a spiny winged stem with woolly blue-gray leaves points to Scotch thistle, and a stem without spines points to Canada thistle. The RBGE and Utah State University Extension give different maximum heights for Scotch thistle, about 3 m and about 3.7 m, and each is reported here as its source states it.
A note for US gardeners: Canada thistle is a listed noxious weed
Canada thistle is not from Canada. Washington State’s Noxious Weed Control Board lists Cirsium arvense as native to Europe and Asia, lists it as a Class C noxious weed since 1988, and says it spreads vegetatively through its roots.
10 to 12 feet is how far Canada thistle roots can spread in one season, according to Washington State.
Source: Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board, Creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense)
Ohio State’s guide says hand-pulling and cultivation are often ineffective because new plants sprout from root pieces that snap off. Noxious-weed listings are made state by state, and Washington and Ohio both carry Canada thistle, so check your own state’s list.
The plant is easy to mistake in the field. Unlike bull thistle and nodding thistle, Canada thistle has stems without spines, and it is number 22 in our guide to common garden weeds and how to identify them. Burdock also carries pink-purple, thistle-like flower heads, and our burdock identification and control guide covers it.
If a thistle turns up in your border, identify it by stem and leaf first, using the table above, then act in the right season. For the autumn timing that makes treatment work on perennial weeds such as dandelion and clover, see our fall weed control guide.
Thistle meaning FAQ
What does a thistle symbolize?
Modern flower guides read the thistle as defiance and protection, and Scotland’s Order of the Thistle has the motto “Nemo me impune lacessit” (“No one harms me with impunity”). Victorian dictionaries gave it austerity, misanthropy, retaliation, sternness and independence, and Christianity links thistles to the curse in Genesis 3:18.
What does the thistle mean in Scotland?
The thistle is Scotland’s emblem and the badge of the Order of the Thistle, whose motto warns that no one harms the bearer with impunity. William Dunbar’s poem of 1503, according to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, casts the thistle as James IV, “so able for the wars.”
Why is the thistle Scotland’s national flower?
No source we found documents the reason. Tradition says a barefoot Norse soldier trod on a thistle at Largs in 1263 and alerted the Scots. The dated evidence starts in the 15th century, with silver coins of James III in 1470 according to Historic UK, and Dunbar’s poem of 1503.
Which thistle is Scotland’s thistle?
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh says the exact identity remains a subject of debate. Its two leading candidates are the spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare) and the cotton or Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium).
What did the thistle mean in the language of flowers?
Greenaway’s 1884 dictionary gives common thistle austerity, fuller’s thistle misanthropy and Scotch thistle retaliation. Tyas (1869) gives sternness, and an 1884 New York dictionary gives independence.
Is milk thistle the same as Scotch thistle?
No. Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) has dark green leaves with white veins, and Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium) has woolly blue-gray leaves and winged stems. Folkard says milk thistle is sometimes called the Scotch thistle “but it is not so.”
Is Canada thistle from Canada?
No. Washington State’s Noxious Weed Control Board lists Canada thistle as native to Europe and Asia, and Washington and Ohio both treat it as a noxious weed.
Sources
- Royal Household. The Order of the Thistle. royal.uk
- St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh. The Thistle Chapel
- Kemnitz, C. Towards 3 million: The Thistle (Cirsium vulgare & Onopordum acanthium). Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Botanics Stories, 2 December 2025
- Historic UK. The Thistle: National Emblem of Scotland
- Historic Environment Scotland. St Giles’ Cathedral and its Royal History (blog, September 2022)
- Greenaway, K. Language of Flowers (1884). Project Gutenberg ebook 31591
- Tyas, R. The Language of Flowers: or, Floral Emblems of Thoughts, Feelings, and Sentiments. George Routledge and Sons, 1869. Internet Archive
- The Language of Flowers, Including Floral Poetry. R. Worthington, New York, 1884 (not Greenaway’s book). Internet Archive
- Flora’s Pocket Dictionary: A Lexicon of the Language and Sentiment of Flowers. Porter and Coates, Philadelphia, 1870. Internet Archive
- Folkard, R. Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1884. Internet Archive
- Royal Horticultural Society. Silybum marianum (milk thistle), plant profile
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NIH). Milk Thistle: Usefulness and Safety
- California Invasive Plant Council. Silybum marianum profile
- Utah State University Extension. Identification and Management of Scotch Thistle (Onopordum acanthium L.) in Pastures, Rangelands, and Non-Crop Settings
- Ohio State University. Canada Thistle. In: Identifying Noxious Weeds of Ohio (Ackley, B. and Alyssa), open textbook
- Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board. Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense)
- Ville de Nancy. Patrimoine, ressources: le blason de la Ville de Nancy (in French)
- Chardons Lorrains. Origine: les chardons lorrains, un symbole et une histoire (in French)
- Vessière frères. Croix, Chardon, Alérion, les 5 symboles de la Lorraine (in French)
- King James Version. Genesis 3:17-19. Bible Gateway
- Thursd. Thistle Flower Meaning
- Euroflorist. Thistle: The Bold Beauty with a Protective Spirit
- SymbolSage. Thistle symbolism and meaning
