THE DTTASF THISTLE. 131 



o thistle, and appear especially so when we regard the 

 diminutive plant from which they spring. Commonly 

 only a single flower-head springs from the centre of the 

 leafy tuft, but in other rosettes we find two or more. Our 

 illustration represents three, but the flower-heads are more 

 ordinarily solitary. After the conspicuous purple flower- 

 heads we find the scarcely less conspicuous masses of white 

 feathery down. This down, with its attached seeds, is dissi- 

 pated by the wind and sent far and wide. The abundance of 

 this plant in dry pasturage makes it one of the plagues of the 

 agriculturist, as it takes up the room that he would prefer 

 to see occupied by the sweet upland turf. It is one of the 

 later flowering species of thistle, and should be looked for 

 in July, August, and September : it seems to be only 

 found in the southern and central counties of England, and 

 more especially in the former, being, in fact, as we have 

 already indicated, in an especial degree a plant of the 

 chalk. Hence we find it more especially on the great 

 expanses of cliff and downland so characteristic of parts of 

 Surrey, Sussex, Kent, and Hampshire. Where found at 

 all the dwarf thistle is found in abundance. 



The roots of the various species of thistle were boiled 

 in wine by our ancestors as correctives of impurities and 

 poverty of the blood. " The same layd to with vinegar 

 healeth the wild scurffe or noughty scabbe." Pliny started 

 the idea, an idea which the medieval writers reverently 

 passed on that if a bald head were fomented with a de- 

 coction of thistle the application would bring a luxuriant 

 covering back again. We have great pleasure in pre- 

 senting this fact, or pseudo-fact, to the knowledge of our 

 readers who may be in search of a hair-restorer : we may 

 yet live to see glowing advertisements of the " world- 



