246 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



stem-leaves narrowly lanceolate, connate at the base, spinous only 

 on the midrib beneath, crenate and generally ciliated, or the 

 uppermost ones entire at the margins. Anthodes ovoid, always 

 erect, with a pericline of numerous linear herbaceous prickly 

 ascending leaves, longer than the flowers, and often exceeding the 

 heads. Scales on the clinanth oblong, acuminated into a hairy 

 subulate straight point, longer than the flowers. 



Waste places, roadsides, and ditches. Common in chalky and 

 limestone districts, though not coniined to them. Generally dis- 

 tributed in England. In Scotland not native North of Fifeshire, 

 though occasionally to be found as far North as Forfar and 

 Moray. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Biennial. Late Summer 



and Autumn. 



Radical leaves lying flat on the ground, produced only the first 

 year, and decaying soon after the flowering stem appears in the 

 following spring. Stem stout, furrowed, 2 to 5 feet high, branched 

 in the upper part. Stem-leaves united at the base, forming a cup 

 in which rain-water collects. Elower-heads 1^ to 3 inches long, 

 beginning to flower in the middle. Clinanth cylindrical, tapering, 

 thickly clothed with coriaceous scales ^ to 1 inch long ; base of the 

 scales broad, folded, hairy, the point firm, ending in a soft spine cili- 

 ated with long hairs, as well as clothed with short ones. Involucel 

 pubescent, applied to the calyx, with a 4-sided tube ; limb obsoiete. 

 Calyx with a slender tube and a dilated 4-cornered pubescent 

 caducous limb. Corolla pale-purple, tubular- funnelsh aped, 4-cleft, 

 with the lobes unequal. Stamens much exserted. Eruit inclosed 

 in the oblong prismatic-tetragonal finely-downy involucel, with 

 8 ribs, crowned at first by the very hairy calyx-limb. Plant light- 

 green, glabrous. 



Wild Teasel, 



French, Cardere Sauvage. German, Wilde Karde. 



This species affords a fine example of what are termed connate leaves. The reser- 

 voirs formed by the united leaves collect the rain so that sometimes half a pint or more 

 may be found there, and this supply enables the plant to endure long droughts. There 

 was an old notion that this water cured warts on the hands, and served as beauty-wash 

 for the face ; so that Bay thus accounts for its name Labrum Veneris. 



Gerarde refers to an old superstition that the little worms or maggots found in tho 

 heads of Teasels, if worn around the neck of a sick person, will act as a charm, and 

 restore him to health. He says : " These things are nothing else but most vaine and 

 trifling stories, as myself have proved a little before the impression hereof, having a 

 most grievous ague and of long continuance ; notwithstanding physicke charms, these 

 worms hanged about my neck, spiders put into a walnut shell, and divers such foolish 

 stories, that I was constrained to take by fantasticke peoples procurement, notwith- 



