HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



Cotton or Scotch Thistle 



Onopordum Acanthium. — Family, Composite. Color, purple. 

 Heads, large, i to 2 inches broad, terminal, with a peculiarly 

 prickly and spiny involucre, the outer bracts of which are longer 

 than the inner. Leaves, very prickly, running down on the stem, 

 making it winged, deeply cut and lobed, those at base sometimes 

 12 inches long. Stem, coarse, cottony, or woolly, 3 to 9 feet 

 high. July to September. 



Rare and local, because, although introduced into our 

 country, it has not yet had time to become common. Road- 

 sides and waste places, New Jersey to Michigan and northward. 



Spanish Buttons. Star Thistle. Knapweed 



Centaurea nigra. — Family, Composite. Color, rose purple. 

 Flowers, all tubular, with a roundish involucre whose bracts are 

 tipped with a brown fringe, or some of them merely lacerated. 

 Leaves, not pinnately cut, the lower on long petioles, the upper 

 sessile or clasping, lance - shape, all woolly and hairy; those 

 under the heads of flowers small. Stem, 1 to 2 feet high, rough- 

 woolly, stiff, much branched. July to September. 



Fields, waste places, and roadsides, New Jersey northward. 

 Brown or Rayed Knapweed 



C. Jacea. — Color, rose purple. Heads of flowers, large and 

 showy. Bracts of the involucre brown, their edges fringed or 

 torn. Leaves, lance - shape, entire, seldom lobed, slightly 

 toothed, not spiny. June to September. 



This species may be known by the marginal flowers of the 

 head being larger than the central, without stamens and 

 pistils. In waste grounds, as fields, also in ballast near our 

 Eastern seaports, New York and New Jersey and parts of 

 New England. 



Bluebottle. Bachelor's Button. Corn-flower 



C. Cyanus. — Color, blue or purplish. A slender - stemmed 

 species with single flowers terminating the branches. Marginal 

 flowers of the head without stamens and pistils, the limb of the 

 tubular corolla 5-cleft, appearing like rays, 1 to i| inches broad. 

 Involucre, of 4 series of bracts, fringed at the top. Leaves, long, 

 narrow, pointed, the lowest pinnately cut or toothed, the upper 

 entire. Stem and leaves somewhat woolly, especially when 

 young. 1 to 2 \ feet high. July to September. 



An annual, escaped from gardens where, formerly, it was a 

 favorite flower. 



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