Ingredient Overview
Milk thistle is a spiny flowering plant associated with Mediterranean herbal traditions. Its fruits, often sold commercially as seeds, contain the flavonolignan mixture known as silymarin.
Silymarin is a mixture of related compounds rather than one isolated constituent. It is obtained from the fruits commonly called milk thistle seeds in commerce. The contrast between the conspicuous flowering plant and its small harvested fruits helps explain where the concentrated ingredient comes from.