[4] The genus name Eryngium was established by Linnaeus in 1753 where he mentioned eight species, including two from America (E. aquaticum, E. foetidum).

Linnaeus, in Genera Plantarum (1754), cited his source of the name Eryngium as being from Joseph Tournefort’s Institutiones rei herbariae (1700).

[5] Prior to the nomenclatural establishment of Eryngium by Linnaeus, plants that can be recognised as belonging to the genus were mentioned by Theophrastus (371–287BC), Pedanius Dioscorides (40–90AD), Otto Brunfels (1532) and Leonhart Fuchs (1543).

Early mentions of American species were made by Francisco Hernández de Toledo (1651) and Leonard Plukenet (1692).

In the 19th century further European and Asian species were described by Pierre Edmond Boissier and Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, and American species by Adelbert von Chamisso, Joseph Decaisne, William Jackson Hooker, August Grisebach, Willis Linn Jepson and Rodolfo Amando Philippi.

It is likely that the genus originated in Eurasia, with a radiation from west to east in subgenus Eryngium, and the western Mediterranean being a primary centre of diversity.

The American species are probably derived from a more recent intensive evolution and radiation, possibly from a single trans-Atlantic dispersal and subsequent landfall in southeastern South America where there is a primary diversity centre in southern Brazil and a younger secondary one in Mexico.

In Iran, Eryngium (Boghnagh فارسی- بوقناق) is used as herbal tea to lower blood sugar.

Eryngium yields an essential oil and contains many kinds of terpenoids, saponins, flavonoids, coumarins, and steroids.