DIPS ACE. E. 



247 



standing, I say, my belpe came from God himself, for these medicines and all other such 

 things did me no good at all." We can but admire the genuine confession of the good 

 man. after having tried the remedies in his own person. Had he tested more of such 

 prescriptions, we should have been without a large portion of his herbal, we imagine. 



SPECIES II.-D IPSACUS FULLONUM. Mill. 

 Plate DCLXXV. 

 Eeich. Ic. FL Germ, et Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCCV. Fig. 1395. 

 D. sylvestris, var. Benth., Handb. Br. Fl. p. 283. 



Stem prickly. Root-leaves oblanceolate-elliptical, indistinctly 

 stalked, crenate, with scattered prickles with tubercular bases ; 

 stem-leaves narrowly lanceolate, connate at the base, without 

 spines, or with only a few scattered ones on the midrib beneath, 

 entire, glabrous or ciliated on the margins. Anthodes shortly 

 ovoid, always erect, with a pericline of numerous linear-lanceolate 

 herbaceous unarmed spreading leaves, not exceeding the flowers, and 

 always shorter than the anthodes. Scales on the clinanth oblong, 

 acuminated into a slightly hairy subulate recurved point, as long as 

 the flowers. 



On waste places and borders of fields in the "West of England, 

 but only where it has escaped from cultivation. 



England. Biennial. Late Summer and Autumn. 



This plant is extremely like D. sylvestris, the chief points of 

 difference being the shorter leaves of the involucre, which are spread- 

 ing or slightly recurved at the apes, not curving upwards, and the 

 shorter and more recurved scales of the clinanth. The calyx-limb 

 is also more deeply lobed. 



Cultivated Teasel. 



French, Cardere cultivee. German, Weber Karde. 

 The Teasel, in its wild form, would appear to be about the most unlikely plant to 

 render any service to man, yet the water which collects in the cup-like hollows of its 

 leaves was at one time considered to be a remedy for bad eyesight. It was called by 

 some of the old herbalists Venns'a bath. The Teasel is an instance of the adaptation of 

 a natural production to the artificial wants of man, in its original state. The object 

 for which it is employed cannot be effected by the most carefully-contrived machinery; 

 and after numerous inventions and attempts to supersede it, none have succeeded so 

 well as the natural Teasel. The purpose for which it is so valuable is the dressing of 

 woollen cloth, the nap of which is raised by means of the prickly heads of this plant, the 

 bracts of which are furnished with little recurved instead of straight prickles. Probably 

 the common Teasel with the straight prickles was at first used, and accidentally a variety 

 with recurved spines was found to answer the purpose better, and it was carefully pre- 

 served and cultivated. The fine-hooked heads of the Teasel are found to raise the 

 fibres of the cloth better than any contrivance that has been attempted. The fine hooks 

 of the plant easily break and give way in any obstruction without tearing or injuring 



