📙 Part 2: Describe a plant that is important/grown in your country

This episode's vocabulary

Run-of-the-mill (adj.) - ordinary and not special or exciting in any way.

Crop (noun) - (the total amount collected of) a plant such as grain, fruit, or vegetable grown in large amounts.

Thistle (noun) - a wild plant with sharp points on the leaves and, typically, purple flowers.

Petal (noun) - any of the usually brightly coloured parts that together form most of a flower.

Jaggy (adj.) - rough, with many sharp points.

To manicure (verb) - to keep something such as a plant or a garden very tidy and regularly cut.

Emblem (noun) - a picture of an object that is used to represent a particular person, group, or idea.

Floral (adj.) - made of flowers, or decorated with pictures of flowers.

Well-versed (adj.) - knowing a lot about something.

Questions and Answers

R: Well, lots of plants are grown in my country, especially in the agricultural areas, but they're all pretty run-of-the-mill crops, to be honest. One that does stand out, though, isn't like these other ones. It's called the thistle. And it's one of the national symbols of our country. Specifically, I think it's called a milk thistle. And it's a flower or at least a flowering plant. It's got these purple petals and a long green stem covered in spines, which are a bit jaggy, and that must be to stop animals from eating them. I don't think it's unique to Scotland. But it does grow all over the place there. Especially in the wilder areas which aren't as manicured as the other, others. Since it's a flowering plant, I suppose the purple part must usually come out in the spring, but I've never really thought about that before until now, to be honest. As far as I'm aware, it's only used as a symbol of Scotland. So it appears on anything and everything you would expect from things like coins to the badges of some football clubs. I think it's also used on the emblem of one of our national political parties as well. This is all a bit ironic, really, since the plant is often seen as a weed, and people try to kill them, so they don't compete with the prettier flowers they might want to grow in the first place in their gardens. Apparently, though, about, what, 800 years ago an enemy soldier stood on one and it made him yell, which alerted our own army to where the opposition was, which means it must have had some better uses at some point, if you were a Scottish soldier living in medieval times, for example. Since then, it served as our national floral emblem. If I hadn't heard of this plant, I have no idea what else I could have spoken about since to be honest, I'm not that well versed on the other kinds of plants we have in our country. With that in mind, I suppose I best brush up on my plant knowledge.

M: And what about your friends? Do they like this plant?

R: I have no idea. We've never talked about it before.