COMPOSITE FAMILY 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: waste-places, near dwellings. 



THE BUSH: erect, from three to five feet high, branched, 

 its main stem with short, soft hairs, more or less woolly 

 and matted. 



THE LEAVES: alternate; the upper roundish or ovate; the 

 lower deeply heart-shaped; sometimes twelve inches long; 

 obtusish at the apex; on long, hollow petioles; usually 

 entire (rarely finely divided). 



THE FLOWER HEADS: lilac-pink or light magenta, about 

 three quarters of an inch broad; the involucre subglobose; 

 the spines tipped with bristles. 



THE FRUIT: achenes; pappus consists of scales. 



What child has not made baskets from the prickly green 

 burs of the burdock, and who is not familiar with the 

 stout, coarse bush, over whose small, purple flower heads on 

 a warm August morning, crowds of white cabbage butter- 

 flies hover, some alighting on the broad and heavy leaves? 

 It grows in the midst of old dumps and along roadsides; 

 anywhere, in fact, near dwellings, the burdock flourishes. 



The bush has a use, the root being placed in the medicinal 

 cupboard, and the young stalks, carefully pared and boiled, 

 serving as a substitute for asparagus. 



COMPOSITE COMPOSITE FAMILY 



Cirsium arvense, (L.) Scop. 



Lilac or pale magenta Canada Thistle, Grey Thistle, 



Cursed Thistle, Perennial Thistle, 



July-September Prickly Thistle, Small-flowered 



Hard Thistle, Thistle, 



Corn Thistle, Creeping Thistle. 



Cirsium: Greek for a swollen vein for which the thistle was 



a reputed remedy. 

 Arvense: Latin, belonging in a field. 



