(JOMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



513 



sessile or partly clasping, 

 softly hairy, green on both 

 sides, pinnatifid, the lobes 

 short, triangular, very 

 prickly-toothed. Heads 

 purple, pale lilac, or some- 

 times nearly white, very 

 large, often three inches 

 broad, very sweet-scented ; 

 bumblebees are nearly al- 

 ways probing them for 

 nectar, and in the writer's 

 childhood it was a custom 

 of country children to strip 

 away the bracts, pull the 

 florets from the receptacle, 

 and eat the sugary nectaries 

 like taffy ; the heads are 

 solitary, terminal,, usually 

 subtended by involucrate 

 clusters of small leaves, the 

 outer bracts of the invo- 

 lucre sometimes slightly 

 glutinous on the back, 

 prickly-tipped, the inner ones unarmed and very slender. 

 (Fig. 355.) 

 Means of control the same as for the Common Thistle. 



FIG. 355. Pasture or Fragrant Thistle 

 (Circium pumilum). X . 



YELLOW-SPINED THISTLE 



Circium ochrocentum, Gray 

 (Cdrduus ochrocentrus, Greene) 



Native. Biennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : May to September. 



Seed-time: July to October. 



Range : Nebraska to Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. 



Habitat: Plains and prairies. 



2L 



