Fell Thistle

And when I climbed to the top of the cursed thing, trying to see if I could cut off the flowerhead, there was a swarm of butterflies curled up in there, all asleep with bellies no doubt full of nectar. I startled one and it flew off, then went the others, until they were all a fluttering black mass rising in the sky like crows save for their quietness.

-- Anonymous story

A species of giant thistle native to the Lundur Isles. They grow exceptionally fast and have a cycle of flowering and seeding that continues all throughout the year but for a few weeks in winter. They grow thick and woody at the base and rise twenty feet upward into enormous pink and violet blooms. Spikes jut out from the upper stems and leaves as well as at the base where they can grow up to five feet in length at arm's thickness. Bees and other pollinators favor Fell Thistle dearly and will be drawn to the giant blooms more so than any other flower, much to the detriment of the surrounding croplands.

Thistlefield

When the Namettes people sailed among the Lundur isles to escape the plaguing mold, thistle seeds from the islands blew into the cracks and seams of their ships. Unknowingly, these were carried ashore upon their return to the mainland and scattered over the fertile soils of northern Canterlund. The thistles sprung up thick and fast and within a month, people were hacking at the plants which encroached on pasture, farmland, and village alike. Towns and eventually whole cities were evacuated as the thistles clambered slowly over the land. Over the course of nine years, the so-called "thistlefield" stretched from northern Canterlund and the pampas all the way down to the first gentle slopes of the Poppied Hills. The growth of this wretched forest is the second of the Great Pestilences, as dubbed by the Helenic Priests and their followers, preceded by the mold and followed by the Apiarian Death.
Years later, that land has been reclaimed by the Giants and a few wary humans and beastpeople. These brave souls lead lives beneath the gnarled stems and spikes, seeking out lost treasures buried by the thistles.