COMPOSITE FAMILY 



279 



solitary, egg-shaped, handsome ; bracts downy ; florets red-purple. 

 — Moist mountain pastures. — Fl. July — September. Perennial. 



10. C. acaulis (Ground Thistle). — A low plant, stemless, or 

 nearly so, and so readily distinguished from all other British 

 species; radical leaves -^mmXi^d, spinous, glabrous; /?da</ solitary, 

 almost sessile; florets crimson.— Dry gravelly or chalky pastures ; 

 not general, but abundant in many southern districts. — Fl. July 

 — September. Perennial. 



11, 6". arvensis (Creeping Plume-Thistle). — A handsome weed, 

 2 — 4 feet high, with a creeping rhizome; stem erect, leafy, 

 angular, not winged ; leaves sessile, pinnatifid, wavy, very 

 spinous ; heads numerous, stalked, corymbose ; bracts broad, 

 adpressed, spinous-pointed ; florets dingy light purple, musk- 

 scented, dioecious, the staminate ones in sub-globose, and the 

 carpellate ones in egg-shaped heads, the two forms of the plant 

 growing in separate patches. — Fields; very common. — Fl. July — 

 September. Perennial. 



Besides these species there are several hybrids between them. 



30. Onopordum (Cotton-Thistle). — Differing from Cdrduus 

 mainly in its honeycombed receptacle and 4-angled fruit. (Name 

 of Greek origin.) 



I. 0. Acdnthium (Scottish thistle). — A stout, hoary, or woolly 

 plant, 4 — 5 feet high ; stem erect, branched, with a broad 

 spinous wing to its summit ; leaves wavy, pinnatifid, decurrent, 

 woolly on both surfaces ; heads many, large, globose, cobwebby ; 

 bracts green, recurved, fringed with minute spines ; -florets pale 

 purple. — Dry waste places, especially in the south. Cultivated as 

 the national emblem in Scotland. — Fl. July — September. 

 Biennial. 



31. SiLYBUM (Milk-Thistle). — Represented by the species S. 

 Maridnum, is not an indigenous genus. It was called by the 

 early botanists Cdrduus Maries, or " Our Lady's Thistle," and is 

 a stout, glossily glabrous plant, 2 — 4 feet high, with white veins to 

 its large leaves ; large globose heads of rose-coloured florets ; 

 united fila?7ients, and a pappus of many rows of silky white hairs. 

 Waste places.— Fl. June, July. Biennial. 



32. Saussurea. — Herbs, not spinous, with heads of bluish- 

 purple, perfect, tubular florets, in corymbs ; bracts imbricate, in 

 many rows, not spinous ; receptacle flat, scaly ; anthers tailed ; 

 pappus in 2 rows, the outer bristly, the inner longer, feathery. 

 (Named in honour of the two de Saussures, Swiss naturalists.) 



I. S. alpina (Alpine Saussurea). — The only British species, 



