GAMOPETAL/: 143 
of the most difficult weeds to eradicate. It is found 
in every part of the British Isles and at high alti- 
tudes. 
The Creeping Thistle is found with the common 
welted thistle, Spear Thistle and others, in fields and 
meadows, where it forms an extensive patch, its 
dicecious male and female flowers in different patches, 
to the exclusion of grasses and other plants. Its 
overblown flowerheads scattered up and down on 
hilly tracts are a familiar sight in summer and autumn, 
the down floating away freely in the breeze, spreading 
the plant far and wide. 
It also grows freely in cornfields when the ground 
is dirty and not well cleaned. By the wayside it is 
frequent, and it is common on waste ground, and, 
indeed, wherever crops are gathered, as the ripe seed 
falls here and there during carriage of hay or corn 
to the stackyard. 
The root is very long, a typical taproot which 
becomes ultimately creeping and dividing. The stem 
is erect and flexuous, angular, furrowed, usually 
cottony. 
The leaves are pinnatifid, spinose, those above half 
clasping, the lower on stalks, oblong lanceolate, 
sinuate or lobed. The stem is not winged as in the 
welted thistle. 
The flower heads are in corymbs, on short 
peduncles, with numerous heads, the involucre of the 
male inflorescences being subglobose, that of the 
female ovoid, the colour pale purple or white. The 
