Daisies and Thistles 189 
provided with rays, which, however, are rolled back, 
and therefore not so very conspicuous. The plant is 
more or less covered with a glandular down which 
gives off an offensive odour, and no doubt serves to 
protect the plant from being browsed down. 
A more local plant, the Stinking Groundsel (8. 
viscosus), has these poits more accentuated. The 
heads are larger, with curled rays, and borne erect, 
and the foetid odour stronger than in the Mountain 
Groundsel. 
With the bold and striking Burdock (Arctiwm 
lappa) we seem to get a first suggestion of the 
Thistle type of flower. The large, thick, heart-shaped 
leaves, with their woolly undecr-sides, are suggestive 
of the Butterbur; but the purple florets, which are 
all tubular, are enclosed by a many-scaled globose 
involucre, which gives the resemblance to a Thistle- 
head. This involucre is an interesting feature of the 
plant, for the numerous scaly bracts of which it is 
composed end, each one, in a hard slender point, whose 
tip is.turned down to convert it into a fine hook. 
The seed-head, therefore, is ike a hedgehog whose 
every spine has been barbed, so that any mammal or 
bird brushing against the plant will certainly carry 
off one or more of these prickly burs sticking tightly 
to fur or feather, and only to be got rid of after much 
pushing through hedges and thickets, each effort 
probably resulting in the ejection of a few of the 
contained seeds. 
In the Carline-thistle (Carlina vulgaris) we have 
an advance in thistliness—the leaves being furnished 
with spines, and some of the involucral bracts being 
spiny and rigid, to dishearten browsing beasts. The 
