288 NATURAL HISTORY. 



Stem bristly, leaves cleft and feathery, pinnatifid ; heads 

 of flowers dense, cylindrical, and of a beautiful dark 

 purple. Found wild in old fields, but, on account of its 

 beauty, cultivated in gardens. 



Teaselworts Fuller's Thistle or Teasel (Dipsacus 

 fullonum). Stem erect, furrowed, prickly; leaves ob- 

 long, lanceolate, serrate, notched. Flowers whitish, 

 sometimes red, in large oval or ovoid heads ; grows wild, 

 but are also cultivated for the use of the clothiers -ful- 

 lonum who employ the heads, with their hard hooked 

 scales, to raise the nap upon woolen cloths. For this 

 purpose they are placed on a revolving drum. In rich 

 soils grows to a height of five feet, but is very brittle. $ . 



THIRTY-EIGHTH FAMILY. COMPOSITE. ASTER- 

 WORTS.* The most extensive and most natural of all 

 the orders of the vegetable kingdom, is always distin- 

 guished at sight by its capitate flowers, and the united 

 anthers. Flowers collected into a dense head composed 

 of many florets, perfect or imperfect, on a common re- 

 ceptacle. The flowers, with a strap-shaped, ligulate 

 corolla, are called rays or ray flowers ; the head which 

 presents such flowers is radiate. Corolla either strap- 



* Comprehends one thousand and five species at present known 

 (1846), and about nine thousand species, being nearly one-ninth of all 

 the species of flowering plants. This immense order is diffused all 

 over the globe, but in very different proportions. The Composite 

 furnish, comparatively, but few useful products. A bitter principle 

 pervades the whole, which, combined with mucilage and resin, becomes 

 tonic and febrifuge. Some are anthelmintics, from the prevalence of 

 the resinous principle ; a few, the Lettuce, Dandelion, Artichoke, and 

 some others, are used for food ; but the most numerous class of the 

 Composite are the ornamental plants. The order abounds with the 

 most beautiful specimens of the floral race, alike interesting to the 

 florist, and of easv culture. MAN. BOTANY. Tr. 



