THE THISTLE. 329 



to maturity. It is however collected in considera- 

 ble quantities by the industrious peasants of Sens- 

 sur-Yonne, and probably of other districts in France. 

 Nor is the tribe without its medicinal properties. 

 The blessed-thistle (G. benedwtus) most probably 

 received its name from the very high esteem in 

 which its medicinal properties were held, as observed 

 by Boderus. The Gfilcus heleno'ides, or elecampane- 

 leaved-thistle, as it is now erroneously called the 

 original English name of melancholy-thistle having 

 been appropriated to the G. heterophyllus was 

 formerly considered efficacious in disorders of the 

 brain ; while the beautiful Garllnas (which how- 

 ever are admitted amongst the thistles by custom, 

 not by right,) are said to owe their name to the 

 gratitude of a monarch whose army was cured of 

 the plague by their use. Oliver de Serres believes 

 this monarch to have been the Emperor Charle- 

 magne, and adds that the remedy was pointed out 

 to him by an angel ; but Linnaeus assigns the occur- 

 rence to the time of Charles V. and says that his 

 army was so cured when quartered in Barbary.* 

 The whole of the Garlinas are considered by the old 

 writers to be " Alexipharmic," and also serviceable 

 to "stimulate the solids, and dissolve the humours :" 

 properties, the consideration and expounding of 

 which, I, with the utmost deference, refer to those 

 more learned in physic than myself confining my 

 own attention to the more intelligible fact, that the 

 whole of the sub-order Gynarocephalce, to which 

 they belong, are tonic and stimulant ; and, as such, 

 * See London's " Encyclopaedia of Plants," &c. 



