DIPSACE.E. 253 



On dry banks and borders of fields, and in waste places. 

 Common, and generally distributed, except in the extreme North 

 of Scotland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Very like S. columbaria, but a much stouter plant, usually with 

 longer and stiiTer hairs. Stems 1 to 3 feet high, simple or branched. 

 Peduncles generally shorter and stouter than in S. columbaria, and 

 the upper leaves less finely divided. The flower-beads are larger 

 and flatter, especially in fruit ; the leaves of the involucre broader 

 and in 2 rows. The i-cleft corolla and the receptacle densely clothed 

 with stiff white hairs, instead of long linear concave scales, and 

 the fruit inclosed in a bluntly 4-ribbed involucel and with the 

 calyx-teeth deciduous, are less obvious but more important charac- 

 ters by which it may always be known from S. columbaria. Flowers 

 pale-lilac. 



The leaves are sometimes all undivided and entire or faintly 

 crenate. 



Field Scabious. 



French, Hcabiense den Champs. German, Acfcer-Knaulic 



