fftistte. 



(Hirsium arncUSt. Natural Order: Co?npositiF — Aster Family. 



m. 



lELD CIRSIUM (from the old Greek name), or the True 

 Thistle, is the name of this variet}^, while the general word 

 ^ Thisde is a common name for various prickly plants which 

 are widely dispersed and very annoying weeds. The most 

 [0 common of these is the Canada Thistle, which is the curse 

 ;)3 of any land where once established, as every seed is fur- 

 nished with an air\- balloon of its own, to bear it to some 

 new, unoccupied district. It also spreads by its creeping root. The 

 flowers are arranged in small purple heads. Tliere is also a yellow 

 variet}'. When the leaves are a short distance above the ground 

 in spring, the}' are sometimes used as a salad, and the stems ma)- 

 be used as a boiled vegetable, if they are tirst stripped of their skins 

 and soaked a short time in water -to extract some of the bitterness pervading 

 them. The tbllowing is the tradition of the adoption of the Thistle as the 

 national emblem of Scotland: A body of Danes or Norsemen waiting to attack 

 tile Scots during the silent watches of the night, sent out a few spies to recon- 

 noitre; these tramped upon some thistles, and, being wounded thereby, uttered such 

 furious maledictions as to arouse the Scots, who were thus saved from disaster. 



i 



^uslrrjlrj. 



H' 



I SHI 



^ I stc 



lUT the door to face the naked tiutli 

 stood alone — I faced the trutli alone, 

 Stripped bare of self-regard, or tbrin. or rul 

 Till tirst and last were -hr)\vn. 



T TI.S square-turned joints and strength of 

 Showed him no carpet knight so trim. 

 But in close fight a champion grim, 

 In camps a leader sage. 



beloved, should look so stern. 

 — Wm. Leggett. 



J 



