Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers .63 



chance it may have escaped from the care of some Scotch gardener. 



For the protection it has given the hare, one plant has been 

 given the name of "Hare's Palace." Gerarde, the old herbalist of 

 the days of Queen Elizabeth, tells us that "if the hare come under 

 it he is sure no beast can touch him." "Hare's Lettuce" is another 

 folk-name, because, according to the ancients, "when hares are 

 overcome with heat, they eat of an herb called Hare's Lettuce or 

 Sow Thistle; . . . there is no disease in this beast, the cure 

 whereof it does not seek in this herb." This thistle is known as 

 Sonchus in the language of science, and is to be found in about 

 three varieties flowering at all seasons of the year and scattered all 

 over the State. The flowers are yellow, the heads swollen at the 

 base "like a two-handled jug." 



The Thistles have an attendant known as the "Thistle Butter- 

 fly." It has a long tongue capable of reaching into the deep tubular 

 little flowers on the flower-head, and is the favored insect upon 

 which the plants depend for pollenization. There is a thistle-bird 

 (the Green-backed Goldfinch), which seems to have a happy lot 

 if one may judge by its song. It feeds on the thistle seeds and makes 

 a lining for its nest with the fluffy down which is attached to the 

 seeds. 



There is an old saying that first loves float from the memory 

 like thistle-down in a breeze. And to be as "light as thistle-down" 

 is a common saying and shows how these plants send their seeds, 

 like the dandelion, floating with their fluffy balloon upon the vagrant 

 winds ; and the shining fleets of its seeds may be seen cruising over 

 fields and towns, across rivers and everywhere as winged hopes. 

 When the seeds germinate, they send up a little rosette of leaves the 

 first season, and the next year the stems spring up and the blooms 

 mature seeds, then the plant dies, being a biennial. 



In the language of flowers, the common thistle stands for 

 Austerity, the Fuller's Thistle means Misanthropy, and the Scotch 

 Thistle is for Retaliation. In dreams it is considered a good omen 

 to dream of being surrounded by thistles. But agriculturists still 

 consider them as a part of the primal curse. 



