158 COMPOSITE 



price, are considered to be the essential pre-requisites of a medicine." The 

 French give the name of Blessed Thistle to a plant of another genus. Their 

 Chardoii heni is the Carthamus lanatus. 



2. Black Knapweed (C. nigra). — Involucral appendages erect, egg- 

 shaped, cut like the teeth of a comb, closely and deeply fringed with spread- 

 ing hair-like teeth, lower leaves deeply toothed, somewhat lyre-shaped, upper 

 ones lanceolate, all rough ; pappus an outer row of blunt scales ; heads of 

 flowers in one form discoid, in another rayed. A plant called Black-rayed 

 Knapweed (C. nigrdscens) is described by Mr. Babington as a distinct species, 

 but some writers doubt if it is so. Its general appearance is much like that 

 of C. nigra, but it is a stouter and more leafy plant, with a larger flower, 

 which is generally rayed. The involucral appendages are paler, cut like the 

 teeth of a comb, but less deeply than in the common form, about three of the 

 innermost separated from the rest, and exposing the scales ; the narrow, 

 thread-like teeth ascending, very short ; the pappus wanting ; the leaves 

 narrow, lanceolate ; the lower ones deeply toothed or somewhat lyrate. This 

 plant is found in some meadows and pastures in the southern counties ; it is 

 synonymous with the C. nigra, var. decipiens, of Hooker's " Student's Flora." 

 Our common Black Knapweed (C. nigra) is to be found everywhere, being, from 

 June to August, one of the commonest flowers of our meadows and pastures, 

 growing by roadsides, on field-borders, or sea-clifFs, and having a tough stem 

 one or two feet high. The tint of the purple flowers is somewhat dull, and 

 they are seldom rayed ; the scales of the involucre are brown, almost ])lack. 

 It is regarded by the agriculturist as a troublesome intruder on the land, being 

 diflicult of extirpation, and seldom touched by cattle either in the green or 

 dried state. A Russian species of this genus is the favourite food of the 

 Crimean sheep, and is supposed to give the beautiful grey to the wool of 

 lambs, so highly prized both in Turkey and Tartary as an ornament to the 

 calpack or cap worn by Tartar gentlemen instead of a turban. 



3. Greater Knapweed (C. scabiusa). — Scales of the involucre closely 

 pressed, with a black finely -toothed margin and paler fringe ; leaves somewhat 

 rough, pinnatifid, segments lanceolate, acute ; pappus hairy ; root perennial. 

 This is a very handsome species, not having dull, compact, purple heads, like 

 those of the Black Knapweed, but the flowers having spreading rays, some- 

 times forming a circle as large as a crown-piece. The involucre, too, is large 

 and globose, its scales of lighter colour, often cottony, and the whole plant 

 taller and stouter. This plant is often called Hard-heads, and several of the 

 species have the familiar name of Iron-weed. It grows in meadows, cornfields, 

 and on sunny banks, needing not any luxuiiance of soil ; for on many sea-cliffs 

 it forms, in July and August, magnificent clumps of bright purplish-lilac flowers, 

 and often graces them in November with an occasional blossom. Sometimes 

 these flowers have a sweet though faint odour, which, though not so powerful, 

 resembles that of an allied garden flower, the Sweet Sultan (C. moschdta), which 

 our fathers called Honeyflower. Our Knapweed grows on a stem about two 

 or three feet high ; the involucres are often as large and almost as hard as a 

 marble. To which of our species the old legend refers as being used by 

 Chiron, it would be hard to say. "The Greater Centaury," says Pliny, "is 

 that famous herb wherewith Chiron the Centaur, as the report goeth, was 



