DIPSACACEAE 



TEASEL FAMILY 



WILD TEASEL 



Dipsaciis sylvestris Huds. 



The Teasel family is small, and all its members are natives 

 of the Old world. 



Wild Teasel was introduced into this country from Europe 

 and is found in waste places 

 and along roadsides from 

 Maine and Ontario to North 

 Carolina, west to Illinois. It is 

 gradually spreading farther 

 west and south. Though com- 

 mon locally in a number of 

 places in Illinois, it is not gen- 

 eral throughout. 



This is a biennial 

 herb, producing the 

 first year only a ros- 

 ette of leaves that re- 

 main green all winter, 

 and the second year 

 a stout stem 3-6 feet 

 high. Stems, pedun- 

 cles, midribs of the leaves and the involucre below the inflores- 

 cence are armed with numerous prickles. The opposite leaves are 

 sessile and usually the upper have their bases grown together to 

 form a sort of cup which is often filled with water after rains. 

 The upper leaves are also acuminate and generally entire but 

 the lower, often i foot long, are obtuse, round toothed or some- 

 times pinnately cleft at the base. 



The flowers bloom from July to September, progressively 

 upward from the base of the inflorescence. The heads are at first 

 ovoid, become cylindric, and at length are 3-4 inches long. The 

 linear leaves of the involucre are curved upward and as long as the 

 head or longer. Each flower is accompanied by a chaffy bract and 

 also a 4-leaved calyxlike involucel, and both of these structures 

 are spiny pointed. The calyx itself is grown fast to the ovary and 

 is cup shaped above. The blue or lilac corolla, attached above 

 the ovary, is tubular, 2-lipped and 4-lobed. Four stamens are 

 attached to the tube. The fruit is an akene. 



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