THE THISTLE FAMILY. 535 



pinnatifid, linear-lanceolate, the lower ones tapering into margined iHrliolcs, the 

 upper ones sessile; all of them surrounded with bristles. (Jn thcii upper hur/accs 

 rough with numerous scattered hairs ; pale below antl covered closely with lomcn- 

 tum. Stem : two to three feet high, simple or sparingly branched, slender and 

 covered with tomentum. 



Among all other plants there is no mistaking a thistle. It has an air. an 

 individuality that speaks for itself. This is so wiili a golden-rod, a rose 

 or a violet, each proclaiming at once its antecedents and itsconneclions ; but 

 to know definitely just the separate place each one holds in the family, one 

 must look closely at the individual. 



The Virginia thistle blooms in thickets and dry barrens and has a slighlly 

 more ragged, unsymmetrical look about its heads of tlowcrs than many 

 another. It has also a stem rather naked above— a fortunate thing, should 

 one desire to pick it to carry home for study or as an artistic model. 



C.altissimus, roadside thistle, is the one familiar through fields and wood- 

 margins, growing sometimes to a considerable height and branching all the 

 way. Its flowers, mostly solitary at the ends of the branches and usually 

 nearly two inches broad, are very showy with their masses of light purple 

 flowers. Ovate-lanceolate are the sessile- leaves and densely covered under- 

 neath with white tomentum. Along their margins, moreover, they arc 

 mostly dentate or lobed with teeth that are bristle-tipped. 



C lanceolatus, common burr, or spear thistle, we cannot claim as an 

 American, it being a native of Europe and Asia. In this country, however. 

 it is well naturalised and is often, unhappily, a troublesome weed. Its dark 

 purple and large flower-heads are very familiar, especially as late in the au- 

 tumn they linger in bloom. 



C, spitiosissimus, yellow thistle, produces but few flower-heads, but ihcy 

 are very large, often three inches in diameter, and while tlie flowers arc 

 usually pale yellow they also occur in deep rich purple. Their involucre is 

 formed by the upper leaves, conspicuous as, in fact, is the whole plant by 

 long spines. Many of the pinnatifid leaves are very large, their lobes being 

 tipped with stiff prickles. Often by the edges of salt marshes and in dry 

 soil the plant grows, from Texas and Florida to Maine. 



C. Leconfei comts up with a simple, or, occasionally, branched, stem and 

 throws out large, solitary, bell-shaped heads of purple flowers. Its lanceo- 

 late leaves, which on the lower stem are most abundant, are very spiny and 

 fringed about with bristly hairs as well. Underneath they arc hoary. The 

 species is not a common one and occurs in the swamps of pine-barrens from 

 Florida and Louisiana to North Carolina. Here those that seek may find 

 it, as indeed might be said about all our wild flowers, trees and shrubs 

 that make the beautiful and verdant spots of the earth. 



