CYNARACEJE. 



Leaves of a dark shining green, all their veins beautifully bordered with 

 white; their edges spinous. Flower-heads purple, large, solitary at the 

 ends of the branches, erect ; the stout spines of their calyx-scales very 

 conspicuous. Achaenia large, polished. Smith. The full-grown leaves 

 said to be sudorific and aperient. 



LAPPA. 



Head homogaraous, many-flowered and equal-flowered. Invo- 

 lucre globose ; the scales coriaceous, imbricated, close pressed 

 at the base, then subulate, with a horny hooked inflexed point. 

 Receptacle rather fleshy, flat, with stiff subulate fringes. Co- 

 rollas 5-cleft, regular, with a 10-nerved tube. Stamens with 

 papillose filaments ; the anthers terminated by filiform append- 

 ages, and \vith subulate tails at the base. Stigmas few at the 

 apex, diverging, curved outwards. Fruit oblong, laterally com- 

 pressed, smooth, transversely wrinkled ; the areola at their base 

 hardly oblique. Pappus short, in many rows ; the hairs deci- 

 duous, filiform, rough, not collected into a ring. DC, 



957. L. minor DC. fl. fr. ed. 3. n. 3010. prodr. vi. 661. 

 Arctium Lappa Eng. Bot. t. 1228. Smith Eng. FL iii. 380. 

 Waste places throughout Europe and the West of Asia. (Bur- 

 dock.) 



Root tapering, fleshy. Stem erect, 3 feet or more in height, solid, 

 leafy, round, furrowed, with many wide-spreading branches. Leaves 

 scattered, stalked, broad, heart-shaped, undulated, veiny , 3-ribbed at 

 the base ; somewhat hoary and downy beneath. Flower-heads axillary, 

 either sessile or stalked, generally globose, with little or no woolliness 

 about the calyx. Florets, with their anthers and stigmas, purple. The 

 involucre when in fruit easily breaks from its stalk, and is well known 

 by the name of a Bur, sticking to the coats of animals, and the hair or 

 clothing of young rustics, which can hardly be cleared of such incum- 

 brances without breaking the scales asunder and scattering the fruit. 

 Smith. Root is reckoned tonic, aperient, sudorific, and diuretic. It has 

 been used in the form of decoction in rheumatism and diseases of the skin. 

 Sir Robert Walpole praised it as a gout medicine, and others have 

 considered it an excellent substitute for sarsaparilla. The fruit which 

 is bitter and slightly acrid, has been used as a diuretic. 



CNICUS, 



Involucre ovate ; scales close-pressed, coriaceous, extended 

 into a long hard spiny pinnated appendage ; the lateral spines 

 conical and distant. Florets of the ray sterile, slender, as long 

 as those of the disk. Fruit longitudinally and regularly striated, 

 smooth, with a broad lateral scar. Pappus triple as it were ; the 

 outer being the horny short, crenated margin of the fruit ; the 

 intermediate consisting of 10 long stiff setae ; the inner of 10 

 short setae : all the setae alternating with each other. DC. 



958. C. benedictus Linn. sp. ed. 1. 826. DC. prodr. vi. 606. 

 Centaurea benedicta Linn, sp.pl. 1296. Calcitrapa lanugi- 



468 



