154 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



a rather conspicuous plant when in vigorous growth and 

 condition. The leaves are very deeply cut into long and 

 narrow lobes, and have their edges coarsely serrated. The 

 lower leaves are very large, often a foot or even more in 

 length, and, as they are rather numerous, they make a 

 striking-looking rosette on the ground as a base from 

 which the flowering stems ascend. The flower-heads are 

 large, and rich in colour. They rise from a solid-looking 

 head, a mass of bracts lapping over each other like tiles, 

 each having a central green portion and a black fringe- 

 like edge. In some country districts the plant is, from 

 this solid globose involucre, called hard-head ; and the 

 more ordinary English name, knapweed, is no doubt based 

 on the same idea. We have never seen a derivation 

 suggested, but if we may be allowed to venture on one 

 ourselves, we would say that probably this name is a 

 corruption of knop-weed. Knop is, we know, a good old 

 English word for what in these days we should call a knob, 

 a hard, globular mass ; it may be found in our established 

 version of the Scriptures, as in Exodus xxv. 31 and 33, 

 where, amidst the fittings of the tabernacle, we find a 

 candlestick having knops and flowers, and bowls having 

 knops and branches of almond ; while in 1 Kings vi. 18 

 we find the word again, where, in the description of the 

 temple built by Solomon, we read that the cedar doors 

 were carved with knops and open flowers. The knops are 

 in this latter case given in the marginal reference as 

 gourds ; but this is immaterial to our present purpose, or 

 perhaps rather illustrates it, as all we desire to show is that 

 a knop, like a gourd, is a globular form. 



The botanical name of the knapweed figured is Cen- 

 taurea Scabiosa. The generic title, we are told, is given to 



