WILD TEASEL 



Calyx. — Cup-shaped, four-lobed, grown fast to the 

 ovary. 



Corolla. — Small, tubular, four-lobed, lavender. 



Stamens. — Four, inserted on the corolla tube; anthers 

 versatile, lavender. 



Pistil. — Ovary one-celled; style threadlike; stigma 

 oblique, dark lavender. 



Fruit. — Akene crowned with the calyx lobes. 



Pollinated principally by bumblebees. Nectar-bearing. 

 Anthers mature before the stigma. 



Upon country roads in early spring one sees stand- 

 ing stark, stiff, and black along the roadside fence 

 the remnants of last year's flowering stalks of Teasel. 

 They stand three to four feet high with four to ten 

 oblong heads on stiff, angular stems. They have defied 

 the winter and survived it. Hidden at the base of each 

 truculent stalk is a rosette cluster of soft, green leaves, 

 and by late June this year's stems appear, also stiff 

 and prickly but green, bearing the promise of other 

 flowers upon their four-edged arms. For a time the old 

 and the new are mingled, apparently in equal strength 

 and numbers, and then some day, without exactly 

 knowing how it has happened, one finds that the old 

 ones have mostly disappeared and youth holds sway. 



The stem is tough, woody, and hollow, with ridges 

 extending its full length and each ridge armed with 

 spines wide at base and very sharp. It is impossible 

 to take hold of it anywhere without being pricked by 

 the spines. The leaves are worthy of such a stem, 

 long-lanceolate, opposite, coarse of texture with a 

 stiff, whitish midrib armed beneath with a row of 

 long, white, recurved prickles. If one pair of leaves 

 stands north and south, the next pair are east and west. 



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