SYNGENESIA— POLYGAMIA-iEQU. Cnicus. 3S7 



In waste ground, and on the banks of ditches. 



/3. About London, in several places, but not common. 



Annual. June, July. 



Root tap-shaped. Herb very large and spreading, to the exclusion 

 of all other plants, for the most part not hairy nor downy. Stem 

 4 or .5 feet high, in a manured soil more lofty, branched, round, 

 solid, leafy. Leaves of a dark shining green, all their veins beau- 

 tifully bordered with white, except in the variety /3 -, their edges 

 spinous. Fl. purple, large, solitary at the ends of the branches, 

 erect ; the stout spines of their cahjx-scalea very conspicuous. 

 Seeds large, polished. Down rough. 



385. CNICUS. Plume-thistle. 



Linn. Gen. 409. Juss. 172. Camp. ed. 4. 127. 



Cirsium. Tourn. t. 255. Gcertn. t. 103. 



Common Cat. tumid, imbricated, of numerous, lanceolate, 

 spinous-pointed scales, permanent. Co?: compound, near- 

 ly uniform ;^orets very numerous, equal, tubular, funnel- 

 shaped ; tube slender, recurved ; limb ovate at the base, 

 with 5 linear, nearly equidistant, segments. Filam. ca- 

 pillary, very short. Ant/i. in a cylindrical tube. Germ. 

 obovate, short. Sti/le thread-shaped, slightly prominent. 

 Stigma oblong, more or less cloven, naked. Seed-vessel 

 none but the converging unaltered calyx. Seed polished, 

 obovate, with a slender, terminal, short, cylindrical point. 

 Do\i)n sessile, feathery, very long, annular at the base, 

 embracing the point of the seed, and, when that shrinks, 

 deciduous. Recept. nearly flat, beset, with brisdy, or very 

 narrow chaffy, scales or hairs, as long as the tubes of the 

 florets. 



Prickly herbaceous plants, like those of die last genus, from 

 which die present differs chiefly in die doxicn of the seeds 

 being evidently feathery, not merely rough. Some spe- 

 cies are, as \nCarduus^ imperfectly dioecious, either ac- 

 cidentally or constantly. Perhaps these two genera ought^ 

 to be united, the distinction above mentioned being ol 

 no more real importance than in Serra/ida, where it is 

 not regarded. But die great number of species in Car- 

 dims and Cnicus makes it commodious to seinirate them, 

 even by an artificial character, which in itself is easy and 

 obvious. 



* Leaves deciirreut. Stem xvinged. 



1 . C. lanvcolatus. Spear Pliiiiie-thistle. 



Leaves decurrenl, i)innatifid, hispid, with variously-spread- 



2 r 2 



