202 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



142. Galiiiui Aparine, L. Stem straggly, matted, rough, leaves 

 6-8 in a whorl, rough with reflexed bristles, flowers white, small, in 

 axillary cymes, 3-9, fruit covered with hooked bristles. 



Teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris, Huds.) 



This handsome plant is found to-day and not earlier in the North 

 Temperate Zone in Europe and West Asia. In Great Britain it 

 occurs in the Peninsula, Channel, Thames, Anglia, and Severn pro- 

 vinces, and in Glamorgan, Pembroke, Cardigan, Montgomery, Car- 

 narvon, Denbigh, Flint, and Anglesea, throughout the Severn provinces 

 and Mersey except Mid Lanes, in the Humber and Tyne provinces, 

 and in Westmorland, Dumfries, Wigtown, Ayr, Renfrew, Lanark, 

 Dumbarton, and Clyde Isles. In England and Ireland it is rare, and 

 local in Scotland. 



The Common Teasel is a conspicuous plant, growing in clumps by 

 the side of the road upon the rising banks of some ditch just under the 

 hedge, because it prefers the moist side of some stream along the 

 banks of which it forms a long line as if for protection with its bristling 

 heads of bloom. It is usually exterminated by farmers, hence this 

 linear arrangement. The Teasel is erect in habit. The plant is hair- 

 less, and the stem is stout, rigid, with prickly ribs, leafy, branched. 

 The leaves are opposite, simple, inversely egg-shaped to lance-shaped, 

 stalkless. The radical leaves of the first year are spreading. The 

 stem-leaves are oblong to lance-shaped, entire, scalloped, with a prickly 

 midrib, united below. 1 



The flowerheads are large, conical, oblong. The florets are pale 

 lilac. Each floret has a separate bract and an involucre. The ascend- 

 ing slender involucre overtops the flowerhead with upwardly curved 

 bracts. The calyx limb is not persistent. The corolla tube is un- 

 equally 4-lobed with 4 stamens. The scales of the receptacle are 

 straight and exceed the florets. The floral bracts are long, rigid, awl- 

 like, fringed with hairs. The partial involucre or involucel is downy. 

 The fruit is 4-sided with 8 depressions. 



Forming a head of numerous florets the flowerhead is conspicuous. 

 The anthers ripen first. The corolla tube is narrow, 9-11 mm. long. 

 One of the branches of the style is wanting or nearly so, for the 



1 Water collects in the axils, and insects drowned in it are absorbed, and thus small flies do not reach 

 the flowers and rob them of honey. The water serves as a reservoir, and is of use to the plant in dry 

 seasons. 



