112 THE WEEDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



This thistle seems to be execrated by everybody. In regard to most plants 

 which are reputed to be a nuisance, apologists find at least one redeeming 

 feature in them, but I have never heard a good word put in for the Star 

 Thistle. It is a vegetable outlaw, and every man's hand is against it, or 

 would be, if it were not so prickly. 



The indictment against the Star Thistle is that it is a terrible pest. It is 

 ;not edible (fresh or as ensilage), it covers the ground with a prickly growth, 

 which impedes the locomotion of sheep, cattle, and man; it smothers all 

 .other herbage and grass. 



I have spoken of the Thistle Acts of Victoria and South Australia in my 

 .account of the "Saffron or False Star Thistle " (K entrophyllum or Car- 

 .thamus), Agricultural Gazette, 1894, page 298. Apropos the South Aus- 

 tralian Act of 1887, the " Star Thistle " aimed at was K entrophyllum., as 

 this was supposed to be the genuine article, but, curiously enough, the real 

 .Star Thistle (Centaur ea calcitrapa) made its presence felt about the time 

 -of the passing of the Act, and so, as it was not specifically stated which 

 .Star Thistle was alluded to, it may be taken to refer to both. 



Popular Description. A weak-stemmed, crawling, scrambling plant with 

 small pink or purple thistle-like flowers. It forms masses 2 or 3 feet high 

 .and more than that in diameter. It is not so rigid as the K entrophyllum 

 described in the Agricultural Gazette for 1894, but the prickly leaves and 

 flowers are sufficiently formidable to cause it to be handled very carefully. 

 Its spreading habit protects the main stem, so that it is not easy to get at 

 the root for the purpose of destroying the plant. 



Botanical Description. 



We x have several weeds and garden flowers belonging to the genus Centaurea 

 in New South Wales, and therefore it will be useful to many to have a descrip- 

 tion of the genus. 



Genus Centaurea. Involucre globular or ovoid, the bracts imbricate, 

 numerous, ending either in a prickle or in a fringed or toothed appendage. 

 Receptacle bearing numerous bristles between the florets. Florets all 

 tubular and five-lobed, the outer row often larger and neuter. Anthers 

 tailed. Style branches linear, often cohering, thickened at the base. 

 Achenes glabrous usually obliquely or laterally attached at the base. Pappus 

 .short, of simple bristles or scales, sometimes very short, or rarely wholly 

 wanting. Erect or prostrate herbs, usually rigid. Leaves alternate, entire 

 or pinnatifid, rarely prickly. Flower-heads large and solitary, or smaller 

 and paniculate. Florets purple-blue or yellow. 



Species calcitrapa. A coarse green annual, rarely slightly woolly. Leaves 

 pinnatifid, not decurrent. Flower-heads sessile amongst the upper leaves 

 or in the forks ovoid. Receptacle with bristles. Involucral bracts ending 

 in long, stiff, spreading spines with smaller prickles at their base. Florets 

 purple, all tubular. Pappus, none. 



How to get rid of it. Being an annual, the Star Thistle should be 

 destroyed when just coming into flower. It can be ploughed in if the pest 

 is abundant. It bears an enormous quantity of seeds, which are wafted 

 about by the wind, so that it is of little use to clear a paddock of the weed if 

 there is plenty of it on your neighbour's land. Road maintenance men 

 should be instructed to carefully destroy this and other weed pests found 

 growing by the road-sides. Road-sides are notoriously such propagating 

 places for noxious weeds (which are brought along by travelling animals, in 



