1892.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 357 



ECLOG^ BOTANIC^, NO. 1. 

 by edward l. greene. 



1. New or Noteworthy Thistles. 



Eighteen years have now elapsed since Professor Asa Gray pub- 

 lished his " Synopsis of North American Thistles."^ In that paper 

 about thirty species were enumerated, six of which were described 

 as new ; and four of these six were Californian. But the vast field 

 of Californian botany had been only very imperfectly explored at 

 that time ; and thistles are plants which collectors, for obvious 

 reasons, neglect. During the lapse of these eighteen years, however, 

 more than a half-dozen new thistles have been recognized in Cali- 

 fornia. Two of them have already been published by the present 

 writer ; and the diagnoses of the rest are now to be given. 



Dr. Gray, in following Bentham and Hooker as to the jDroper 

 name for the genus, seems not to have acted wisely; for the Cnicus 

 of the ancient Fathers of Botany is Cartliamus tinctorin^, while the 

 Cnicus of Linnaeus has for its type species what is now commonly 

 known as Cevtaurea benedida ; so that whether the initial date for 

 genera be 1753 or 1700, Cnicus is not free for application to this 

 vast genus known to us as Thistles, the Latin name of which must 

 be either Carduiis or Cirsium. These two will be retained, or else 

 the latter genus will be merged in the former, according as the gen- 

 era be considered distinct or inseparable. I regard them as insep- 

 arable, and therefore employ that name which has the sanction of 

 Linntean usage, and has been adopted by M. Baillon. 



Carduus crassicaulis. 



Very stout and tall, 4 to 7 feet high : stem an inch in diameter 

 below, strongly striate throughout, simple up to near the summit, 

 there becoming somewhat thyrsoid-paniculate, with 3 to 7 short- 

 peduncled heads, H to 2 inches high: herbage permanently hoary- 

 lanate : leaves small, pinnately parted, the segments spinose-tipped 

 and the whole margin spinulose-ciliate : involucral bracts rather lax, 

 linear-lanceolate to lanceolate-acuminate, all tipped with a slender 

 straight spine, the outer and middle ones with pectinate-spinescent 



1 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. X, pp. 

 39-48, 1874. 



