242 composite, (composite family.) 
pus very short; stem branched; leaves lanceolate, or the lower ly- 
rate-angled, rough. 1|. — Naturalized in E. New England. Aug. — 
Flowers purple. 
C. Americana, Nutt., a very showy species of the Southwestern 
States, is commonly cultivated in gardens. 
54* CNICUS, Vaill. Blessed Thistle. 
Heads many-flowered; the ray-flowers tubular and sterile, short¬ 
er than the rest, which are all tubular and perfect. Scales of the 
ovoid involucre coriaceous, appressed, produced into a long and 
rigid pinnately spinose appendage. Receptacle clothed with capil¬ 
lary bristles. Achenia short, strongly striate, crowned with 10 
short and horny teeth, and bearing a pappus of 10 elongated rigid 
bristles, and 10 short bristles alternate with the last in an inner 
ro\i. An annual somewhat woolly herb, with clasping scarcely 
pinnatifid-cut leaves and large bracted heads. Flowers yellow. 
(Name from #evt£a>, to prick .) 
1 C. benedictus, L. — Road-sides, scarcely naturalized. 
55. CIRSIFM, Tourn. Plumed Thistle. 
Heads many-flowered ; the flowers all tubular, perfect and sim¬ 
ilar, or rarely imperfectly dioecious. Scales of the ovoid or spher¬ 
ical involucre imbricated in many rows, tipped with a point or 
prickle. Receptacle clothed with soft bristles or hairs. Achenia 
oblong, flattish, not ribbed. Pappus of numerous bristles united 
into a ring at the base, plumose to the middle. — Herbs, with ses¬ 
sile alternate leaves, often pinnatifid, and the margins and teeth 
prickly. Heads large terminating the stem or branches. Flow¬ 
ers purple or cream-color. (Name from K ipao S , a swelled vein , for 
which the Thistle was a reputed remedy.) 
* Scales of the involucre all tipped with spreading prickles. 
C. lanceolatum, Scop. (Common Thistle.) Leaves 
ecurrent on the stem, forming prickly lobed wings, pinnatifid, rough 
and bristly above, woolly with deciduous webby hairs beneath, prick- 
y, owers purple. — Pastures and road-sides, everywhere, in* 
troduced. July-S ep t. 
Inner, or nearly all the scales of the involucre unarmed , appressed: 
filaments hairy. 
- Leaves white-woolly beneath and sometimes also above: outer scales 
of the involucre successively shorter , tipped with short prickles. 
