330 WILD FLOWERS. 



might probably be sometimes used with advan- 

 tage. 



Allusion has already been made to the exhaustive 

 nature of a crop of thistles. Of this the facts given 

 by Mr. Curtis, form no inadequate illustration. In 

 the month of April he planted a portion of the root 

 of the common corn or way-thistle (Gnlcus arvense), 

 of about two inches long, in his garden. When ex- 

 amined in the following November this mutilated 

 root-stock was found to have thrown out several 

 underground shoots or stolones, some of which were 

 eight feet long ; while it had also produced leaves 

 which shot up to a height of five feet. The plant 

 was then dug up, and the root found to weigh four 

 pounds, yet in the following spring, from forty to 

 sixty young plants sprang up from the fragments 

 of root-stock which had eluded a very careful search, 

 when the plant had been, to all appearance, eradi- 

 cated in the autumn. An instance, too, is on record 

 of the roots of one of the same species descending 

 to a depth of nineteen feet.* Nor are the tribe less 

 persistent. In very early days a celebrated hill in 

 Holy Isle obtained the name of Thristley Hill ; and 

 still existing entries of the expenses of the Holy 

 Isle Priory, for the year 1 344-5, as quoted by Dr. G. 

 Johnston, shew, amongst other items, the expendi- 

 ture of 2s. 8d. for "gloves for fourteen servants 

 when they gathered the tythe corn/' This protec- 

 tion might with advantage be used there even at the 

 present day. The roots of the corn-plants, on which 

 man depends for the "staff" of life, reach, at the 

 * " Farmer's Magazine." 



