176 KNAPPIA. 



[nlASS IV. ORDER I. 



of Norfolk, Suffoll, and Derbyshire; Arundel Castle, Sussex; Guild- 

 ford, Surrej- ; " River Don side, about a luile below Conishro'," York- 

 shire — Salt's Ilcrhar. Rare in Scotland — Lightfoot. 

 Biennial ; flowering from July to September. 



GENUS II. KNAU'TIA. Linn. Knautia. 



Nat. Ord. Dipsa'ce.'E. 



G£n. Char. Flowers in heads, surrounded by a many-leaved involu- 

 cruin. Involucellmn compressed, with four little excavations. 

 Calyx cup-shaped. Fruit placed upon a short stalk. Receptacle 

 bristly. — Named in honour of Christopher Knaut, a botanist of 

 Saxony, who flourished in the latter half of the seventeenth cen^ 

 tury. 



1. A". «nvn'sM, Coulter, (Fig. 219.) Field Knautia. Heads many- 

 flowered ; involucellura with very minute teeth ; calyx with from 

 eight to sixteen awn-like bristles. 



Hooker, British Flora, vol. i. p. 64. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 140. — 

 Scabio'sa arven'sis, English Botany, t. 659. — English Flora, vol. i. 

 p. 195. 



Root tapering, with spreading fibres, putting out several round, hol- 

 low, branched, erect stems, from two to three feet high. The whole 

 plant hairy. The lower leaves on footstalks, lanceolate, more or less 

 serrated ; the upper ones deeply cut in a pinnatifid manner, and with- 

 out footstalks. Sometimes the whole of the leaves are lanceolate, and 

 with the footstalks of variable lengths. Flowers large and handsome, 

 in somewhat convex terminal heads of numerous lilac flowers, on 

 longish simple stalks, surrounded by an involucrwn of numerous lance- 

 olate hairy leaves, and fixed upon a convex bristly receptacle : inner 

 florets perfect, and with equal segments ; the outer ones larger, with 

 imperfect stamens, the segments unequal, of a darker colour, and dis- 

 posed in a radiated manner round the head. Fruit on a short, gland- 

 ular stalk, one- celled, enwrapped in the somewhat hairy tube of the 

 involucellum, and crowned by the persistent, cup-shaped, bristly, 

 pappus-like calyx. 



Habitat. — Pastures and corn-fields; frequent. 



Perennial; flowering from June to August. 



The whole plant has a bitter, somewhat astringent, nauseous flavour, 

 and was formerly much employed in the cure of some aff'ections of the 

 skin and diseases of the lungs. Sheep and goats are said to eat it, but 

 it does not appear to be generally relished by domestic cattle, 



