BEAUTY IN A THISTLE BLOSSOM. 97 



purple head is erect a great eye, as it were, 

 gazing up into the blue ethereal depths above 

 purple looking into blue and mayhap gather- 

 ing from the latter a deeper hue to add unto its 

 loveliness. 



The odor of the field thistle is not an espe- 

 cially pleasing one, but the beauty of the purple 

 head with its subtending involucral scales of 

 green, each tipped with a whitish spine, more 

 than makes amends for its lack of fragrance. 

 Rich in pollen, too, and visited each day by 

 many a butterfly and bumble-bee. From out of 

 the depths of the one in hand there crawls a 

 slender staphylinid beetle, which is dedicated to 

 science by consignment to the depths of a cya- 

 nide bottle. The first thistle blossom of the 

 year, opening from the apex of the central stalk 

 is, to an eye which appreciates solid beauty, one 

 of the most attractive of our wild-wood flowers. 



The stem of the second flower is also armed 

 with spines and the hue a most charming one 

 the rich dark red of the upland wild rose. 24 It, 

 too, is the first of the season. From the apex of 



24 jBosa humilis Marsh. 

 (7) 



