COMPOSITE. d 



laries spreading, bayonet-shaped, spinous-pointed. Corolla glabrous. 

 Pappus pale brownish-red, twice as long as the achene. 



By roadsides and in waste places, particularly in chalky and 

 sandy soils. Not uncommon in England ; rare and very doubtfully 

 native in Scotland, where it occurs as far North as Eife. 



England, Scotland. Biennial. Late Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Stem 18 inches to 5 feet high, very stout, with wings broader 

 than its own diameter. Radical leaves sessile, deeply sinuated; 

 stem-leaves oblong-elliptical, less deeply sinuated than the root- 

 leaves, their bases decurrent into the wings of the stem. Pericline 

 IJ to 2 inches across, with very numerous green phyllaries clothed 

 with white cobweb-like hairs and with a strong nerve excurrent into 

 a yellowish spine. Corolla light purple. Stamens with the con- 

 nective produced beyond the anther-lobes into a long tapering 

 point. Achenes J inch long, greyish-brown, marbled with black, 

 transversely wrinkled. Hairs of the pappus clothed with smaller 

 hairs directed towards the point. Plant hoary, the young leaves 

 white. 



Scotch Thistle. 



French, Onoperde Acanthe. German, Gemeine Krehs, Esels Distel. 



This Thistle is also called the Cotton Thistle from its downy appearance. The 

 common name Thistle, which is applied to many other plants, is essentially the same 

 word in all kindred languages, and comes from pistel, from pydan, to stab. This 

 species is the national emblem of Scotland, and is one of the stiffest and most thorny 

 of its race. It is the badge of the Stuarts, and its sharp spines well agree with 

 Gerarde's description of the plant. He describes it as " set full of most horrible 

 sharpe prickles, so that it is impossible for man or beast to touch the same without 

 great hurt and danger." The origin of the Thistle as the national emblem is thus 

 given by tradition. 



" When the Danes invaded Scotland, it was deemed unwarlike to attack an 

 enemy in the darkness of the night instead of a pitched battle by day \ but on one 

 occasion the invaders resolved to avail themselves of stratagem, and in order to 

 prevent their tramp being heard, they marched barefooted. They had thus neared 

 the Scottish force unobserved, when a Dane unluckily stepped his foot on a superb 

 prickly Thistle and uttered a cry of pain, which immediately aroused the Scotch, who 

 discovered the stealthy foe and defeated them with great slaughter. The Thistle was 

 immediately adopted as the insignia of Scotland." The Order of the Thistle was 

 revived or iustituted A.D. 1540, by James V., who caused it to consist of himself 

 as sovereign, and twelve knights, in imitation of Christ and the twelve apostles. In 

 the then dawning Reformation, this imitation was considered irreverent, and the order 

 was discontinued, but revived again by James the Seventh of Scotland and Second of 

 England, who created eight knights. May 29th, 1687. The first Scottish coins on 

 which the Thistle appears, are those of James V. The ancients supposed that this 

 Thistle was a specific in cancerous complaints. The receptacle and young stems are 



