From Blue to Purple 



When the Danes invaded Scotland, they stole a silent night 

 march upon the Scottish camp by marching barefoot; but a Dane 

 inadvertently stepped on a thistle, and his sudden, sharp cry, 

 arousing the sleeping Scots, saved them and their country: hence 

 the Scotch emblem. 



From July to November blooms the Common, Burr, Spear, 

 Plume, Bank, Horse, Bull, Blue, Button, Bell, or Roadside Thistle 

 (C lanceolatusor Circium lanceolatum of Gray), a native of Europe 

 and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from New- 

 foundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower- 

 heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are 

 mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few 

 crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret 

 there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly 

 transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no in- 

 convenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger 

 feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like 

 hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing 

 mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets. 

 Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward. 



" Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall." 

 " If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all," 



might be the ant's passionate outburst to the thistle, and the 

 thistle's reply, instead of a Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth coup- 

 let. Long, lance-shaped, deeply cleft, sharply pointed, and prickly 

 dark green leaves make the ascent almost unendurable; never- 

 theless the ant bravely mounts to where the bristle-pointed, over- 

 lapping scales of the deep green cup hold the luscious flowers. 

 Now his feet becoming entangled in the cottony fibres wound 

 about the scaly armor, and a bristling bodyguard thrusting spears 

 at him in his struggles to escape, death happily releases him. All 

 this tragedy to insure the thistle's cross-fertilized seed that, seated 

 on the autumn winds, shall be blown far and wide in quest of 

 happy conditions for the offspring! (Illustration facing p. 81.) 



Sometimes the Pasture or Fragrant Thistle (C. odoratus or C. 

 pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful, odorous purple 

 or whitish flower-head, that often measures three inches across, 

 with a formidable array of prickly small leaves just below it. In 

 case a would-be pilferer breaks through these lines, however, there 

 is a slight glutinous strip on the outside of the bracts that compose 

 the cup wherein the nectar-filled florets are packed ; and here, in 

 sight of Mecca, he meets his death, just as a bird is caught on limed 

 twigs. The pasture thistle, whose range is only from Maine to Del- 

 aware, blooms from July to September. (Illustration facing p. 8 1.) 



Even gentle Professor Gray hurls anathema at the Canada 

 Thistle; "a vile pest" he calls it. As Cursed, Corn, Hard, and 



77 



