Teasel

 Teasel or teazel or teazle are tall herbaceous biennial plants whose seeds are an important winter food resource for some birds, notably the European Goldfinch; teasels are often grown in gardens and encouraged on some nature reserves to attract them. Our Goldfinches seem to prefer the ease of picking niger seeds out of the seed feeder.

In 'the good old days' the seed-heads were used for teasing wool (or perhaps that should be teazing wool) - they didn't make fun of or attempt to provoke the wool in a playful way; they fluffed or separated the fibres by brushing them in the wrong direction.

Presumably the women did the teazing but the men did the harvesting - unless the women were a lot taller than Jo!!!!