120 DIPSACE^ 



blankets were made of goats'-wool, teased into a satiny surface by little 

 Teasel-like brushes of bamboo. 



Old writers recommend Teasel-heads for hygrometrical purposes. " Tezils, 

 or Fuller's thistle," says Wilsford, "being gathered and hung up in the house 

 when the aire may come freely to it, upon the alteration of cold and windy 

 weather will grow smoother, and against rain will close up his prickles." 



3. Small Teasel {D. pildsus). — Leaves stalked, with a small leaflet at the 

 base on each side ; stem angular, rough, with small prickles turning down- 

 wards ; flower-stalks bristly ; leaves egg-shaped, pointed, and serrated ; root 

 biennial. The Teasels hitherto described could not be mistaken for any other 

 plants. This species has, however, at first sight much the appearance of a 

 scabious. It is not a common plant, but grows here and there in moist 

 hedges south of Yorkshire. The author has found it about Wouldham, in 

 Kent, and it occurs in various parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Berkshire, 

 9,nd Surrey. The heads of flowers are nearly globose, rarely so large as a 

 walnut, the bristly receptacle being studded, in August and September, with 

 whitish corollas, having remarkably protruding anthers. The stem is three 

 or four feet high, branched, and leafy ; the whole plant is very rough. It 

 has been commended as afibrding a sudorific medicine. 



2. Scabious (Scabidsa). 



1. Devil's-bit Scabious {S. succisa).—CoYo\\a, 4-cleft, nearly regular, 

 hairy ; heads of flowers nearly globose ; bracts of the involucre in two or 

 three rows ; root-leaves numerous ; stem-leaves usually few ; root perennial. 

 The rich purplish-blue flowers of this Scabious, with their reddish anthers, 

 may be seen from July to October growing among the short grasses of the 

 dry pasture-lands of our hillsides, and standing on a stem a foot or more in 

 height. It is particularly abundant on chalky lands, but is found on other 

 soils, and adorns heaths and meadows. The short blackish root of the plant 

 terminates abruptly, being what the botanist terms premorse, and looking 

 exactly as if bitten off, though this condition is rarely, if ever, apparent 

 during the first year of growth. The notion once prevailed very generally 

 that, to use the words of an old writer, "TheDivile for enviethat he beareth 

 to mankind, bit it oftj because that otherwise it would be good for mauie 

 uses." Now that all can read the Scriptures, and trace there all that has ever 

 been revealed concerning the Spirit of Darkness, the Great Enemy of man, 

 these notions of our fathers are seen plainly enough to be absurd ; yet 

 learned men of those times gravely declared them, and ignorant men received 

 them with unquestioning faith. Another old herbalist (Culpepper) says : 

 "The herb or the root (all that the devil hath left of it), being boiled in wine 

 and drank, is very powerful against the plague and all pestilential diseases 

 or fevers, poisons also, and the bitings of venomous beasts. It helpeth also 

 those that are inwardly bruised by any casualty or outwardly by falls or 

 blows." He states that " This root was longer, until the devil (as the friars 

 say) bit away the rest of it from spite, envying its usefulness to mankind ; 

 for sure he was not troubled with any disease for which it is proper." 

 Gerarde, however, very properly describes these opinions as the sayings of 

 "old fantasticke charmers/' but he places great faith in the efficacy of the 



