1050 CIRCIUM. [CLASS XIX, ORDER I. 
Root tapering. Stem erect, from four to five feet high, round, 
branched, leafy, smooth. Leaves all sessile, oblong, dark green, 
smooth, shining, the veins beautifully white, giving the leaf a 
marbled appearance, the upper ones waved, and embracing the stem 
with their heart-shaped base, the lower ones sinuated in a pinnatifid 
manner, all spinous on the margin. lowers terminal, solitary, large, 
dark purplish crimson. Jnvolucre swollen, its scales ovate, and 
leafy at the base, spinous on the margin, suddenly contracted into a 
long hard channeled recurved point. lorets tubular, the limb 
deeply cut into five narrow segments. Jilaments united. Fruit 
ovate, large, polished. Pappus of numerous silky rough rays, united 
into a ring ot the base. 
Habitat —Banks and waste places ; rare in Scotland, about Edin- 
burgh and Dunbarton Rock. 
Biennial; flowering in July. 
This species is readily distinguished by its beautiful marble veined 
leaves; which, as Sir J. E. Smith remarks, “ Botanists and Physicians 
of the dark ages report to have been caused by the milk of the Virgin 
Mary falling upon a plant of this species, and that all its progeny 
have retained the blessed stain. ‘There is, however,” he further re- 
marks, “ a refractory, heretical variety found near London whose 
leaves remain entirely green.” The leaves, when mature, are said to 
possess sudorific and aperient properties. ‘The young leaves and 
roots are used in Italy as a vegetable, and may be purchased at the 
corners of the streets of Rome during the months of March and April 
in great abundance. 
— 
GENUS XIX. CIRCI’'UM.—Torn. Plume-thisile. 
Nat. Ord. Composi'tEx. Juss. 
Grn. Cuan. Involucrum ovate, imbricated, the scales simple, spinous 
at the point. Receptacle paleacous, the scales cut into bristle- 
shaped segments. Pappus feathery, united at the base into a 
ring, deciduous. 
* Leaves decurrent. 
1. @. lanceo'latum, Scop. (Fig. 1239.) Spear Plume-thistle. Leaves 
decurrent, deeply pinnatifid, their segments generally two lobed, 
spreading, spinous, hispid on the upper surface, downy on the under; 
involucre ovate, woolly, its scales lanceolate, spreading; heads 
solitary. 
De Cand. Prod. 6. p. 636.—Carduus lanceolatus, Linn.—English 
Botany, t. 107.—Cnicus, U. Willd.—English Flora, vol. iii. p. 388.— 
Hooker, British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 297.—Lindley, Synopsis, p 
152. 
Root fleshy, branched. Slem erect, about four feet high, stout, 
