U8 COMPOSITE 



in proportion to its height. Sir J. D. Hooker saw a most curions species of 

 this genus in East Nepal. This Avas the *S'. gossypivm, which forms great 

 clusters of the softest white wool. It is six inches to a foot high, "seeming," 

 as this botanist remarks, " uniformly clothed with the warmest fur which 

 Nature can devise." 



19. Thistle {(Jurdniis). 



1. Musk Thistle (C. nutans). — Leaves forming a wing down the stem, 

 thorny, and deeply cut ; heads of flowers terminal, solitary, and drooping ; 

 scales of the involucre lanceolate, outer ones spreading ; root biennial. The 

 whole of this genus well deserves the name, taken from ard, a point ; for 

 stem, foliage, and flower-cups, are all studded with sharp points. But the 

 prickly habit of Thistles needs no comment ; and all animals, save the 

 donkey, are afraid to approach such well-armed plants. The spines on this 

 species are very strong ; and the large, handsome, reddish-purple flowers 

 expand from May to October, diffusing, especially in the evening, a delicious 

 musk-like odour. The stem is two or three feet high, little branched, and 

 grey Avith cottony down; the floAvers, which are too heavy to be shaken 

 by a light summer's wind, wave to and fro before the rougher blasts of 

 autumn. 



2. Welted Thistle (C. acanfhoides). — Leaves forming a wing down the 

 stem, lanceolate, pinnatifid, and spinous ; heads globose, nearly sessile, 

 solitary or clustered ; scales of the involucre narrow, awl-shaped, erect or 

 spreading ; root annual or biennial. This is a branched plant ; its small 

 heads of purple or rarely white floAvers expanding in June and July. Its 

 stem, winged with the thorny leaves, is three or four feet in height. It is 

 very common by our roadsides, and grows on many of our heaths, among 



" The churlish Thistles, scented briars, 

 The wind-swept blue-bells on the sunny braes." 



The loaves are sometimes smooth beneath, at others cottony. Professor 

 Burnett remarks of it, "Some persons believe that it is the true Scotch 

 Thistle, a plant of which Messrs. Dickson and Gibbs, nurserymen, near 

 Inverness, raised in their grounds, a few years ago, to the astonishing height 

 of eight feet ; thus seeming, for a moment, to furnish evidence in favour of 

 Foote's ill-natured and pricking satire, that ' nothing grows to perfection in 

 Scotland but Thistles, and they are raised in hot-beds.'" The Professor 

 considered the handsome Milk Thistle to be the true Scotch Thistle, but 

 botanists are now pretty generally agreed that the Cotton Thistle has far 

 greater pretensions to this distinction. The Welted Thistle is also known 

 as C. crisjnis. 



3. Slender-flowered Thistle (C. icmdfl&rns). — Leaves forming a wing 

 down the stem, lanceolate, deeply cut, and spiny, somewhat cottony beneath ; 

 heads of flowers cylindrical, nearly sessile, clustered ; scales of the involucre 

 erect ; root annual or biennial. The stem of this Thistle is from two to four 

 feet high, winged to its very summit with the bases of the prickly leaves. It 

 grows near towns or on sandy places, as dry heaths, l)ut more especially near 

 the sea, It is a very distinctly marked species, and bears small heads of pink 



