56 .Teasels. [Sess. 



their bases, forming a cup in which water is collected. These 

 leaves are among the finest examples of what botanists term a 

 connate leaf. The quantity of water collected by a single pair 

 of leaves is sometimes more than half a pint. The supply 

 enables the plant to endure long droughts, and also acts as an 

 effectual barrier to wingless insects trying to reach the flowers. 

 But these cups serve another and more important purpose. 

 They act as traps for insects by which the plant is nourished, 

 for it is an insectivorous plant. The water collected by the 

 leaves is sometimes coloured quite a dark - brown by the 

 presence of decayed animal matter. Kerner says that there 

 are cells at the bottom of the cups from which living threads 

 radiate. But Dr Francis Darwin was the first to discover 

 digestive glands at the base of the leaves, and that the living 

 threads discovered by Kerner were in some way connected 

 with the assimilation of food. The connate leaves have been 

 to a certain extent adapted for the capture of insects, whose 

 decaying remains are absorbed by the plant. The leaves of 

 the first year's growth do not form cups and are not smooth. 

 The stems are everywhere armed with sharp prickles, except 

 where covered by the water in the cups, and here they are 

 quite smooth, so that no ladder of escape is afforded to the 

 drowning victims. 



The water collected by the teasel has long been believed to 

 be a cure for warts or corns, as well as a remedy for sore 

 eyes and a beauty wash for the face. Secretions of insectiv- 

 orous plants are known to cure warts and corns : those of the 

 Sundew have been long used for this purpose. In 1777 

 Lightfoot in his ' Flora Scotica ' says that the liquor which 

 exudes from the hairs of the Sundew is said to take away 

 warts and corns. The old herbalists called the cups of water 

 Venus's basins, and country people may still be seen when the 

 flowers are seeding collecting the water, to be used either for 

 curative purposes or for beautifying the faces of the village 

 girls. Lyte in his translation of Dodoens in 1586 says that 

 the heads of the teasel are hollow, and the most of them con- 

 tain worms, which when worn or tied about the neck will cure 

 and heal the ague. Gerarde also refers to this. If the flower- 

 heads of these plants are opened longitudinally in the autumn, 

 a small worm is frequently found in the centre; and some 



