224 



FIELD AND WOODLAND PLANTS 



and the pappus consists of brown, feathery hairs, all of the same 

 length. The flowers appear during August and September. 



The Meadow Thistle [Carduus pratensis) is abundant in some 

 of the southern counties of Britain and Ireland, but is rarely seen 

 in the north. Nearly all the leaves of this plant are radical, and 

 these are long, narrow, and covered with cottony hairs. The 



few leaves of 

 the stem are 

 narrow, with 

 short teeth that 

 are only shghtly 

 prickly. The 

 stem itself 

 grows from 

 twelve to eigh- 

 teen inches high, 

 and is usually 

 unbranched, 

 with a single 

 head of flowers ; 

 sometimes, how- 

 ever, it has one 

 or two branches, 

 each terminat- 

 ing in a flower- 

 head. The 

 involucre is 

 glob ular in 

 form, covered 

 with cottony 

 hairs, and com- 

 posed of closely-placed bracts. The flowers are purple. The plant 

 grows chiefly in moist pastures, and flowers from June to August. 



The Black Knapw^eisd or Hardhead {Centaurea nigra) is a very 

 common flower of meadows and pastures, flowering from June to 

 September. Its stem is erect, tough, branched, from a few inches 

 to three feet in height. The leaves are long and narrow ; the upper 

 ones entire or nearly so, and clasping the stem ; and the lower 

 coarsely toothed or divided into lobes. The flower-head has 

 somewhat the appearance of a purple thistle, but the involucre 

 is not prickly. The latter consists of an almost globular mass of 



The Autumnal Hawkbit. 



