The story
From Russian + thistle: believed to have been introduced to North America from Russia, and is prickly like a thistle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Russian thistle
Today it means: Any of several species of genus Salsola and its close relatives, prickly shrublike annuals, especially Salsola tragus (syn. Kali tragus), which is the best-known kind of tumbleweed in the US. Full definition →