22 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



where it is plentiful ; rare in Scotland, where it occurs at intervals 

 along the East coast as far as Kincardine and Moray, and on the 

 West to the Isle of Arran. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Biennial. Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Root a tap-root, producing the first year a tuft of strap- 

 shaped-oblanceolate, nearly flat leaves, hoary-floccose, especially 

 beneath, very spinous, but with the spines short and weak. 

 Elowering-stem 3 inches to 2 feet high, purple, slightly arach- 

 noid, not winged. Leaves decreasing in length and increasing 

 in width from the bottom to the top, strongly veined, spinous and 

 waved at the edges. Anthodes f to 1 inch across, or, including the 

 ray, 1^ at the extremity of the stem and branches, which latter 

 frequently exceed the primary anthode. Pericline with leaves at 

 the base, outer phyllaries green, tinged with purple, the inner 

 very long, and straw-yellow, spreading and forming a false ray 

 round the dark-purple florets. Achenes yellowish-brown, with 

 adpressed silky hairs. Pappus plumose, the hairs cohering irre- 

 gularly in twos or threes at the base. Pales of the clinanth cut 

 at the apex into subulate segments rather longer than the pappus. 

 Plant pale-green, the leaves rigid, coriaceous, and scarcely altering 

 after the plant is dead, except in colour. 



Carline Thistle. 



French, Carline Commune. German, Gemeaie Bhenvurz. 



TLe original name of this plant was Carolina, so called after Charlemagne, of 

 whom the legend relates that " a horrible pestilence broke out in his army and carried 

 off many thousand men, which greatly ti-oubled the pious emperor. Wherefore 

 he prayed earnestly to God ; and in his sleep there appeared to him an angel, who 

 shot an arrow from a cross-bow, telling him to mark the plant upon which it 

 fell, for that with that plant he might cure his army of the pestilence. And so it 

 really happened." The herb so miraculously indicated was this thistle. It does not, 

 however, seem to possess any active properties, though Withering says it is valuable in 

 hysterical cases. The flowers expand in dry and close in moist weather : they retain 

 this property for a long time, and form rustic hygrometei-s. The presence of the 

 Carline Thistle indicates a very poor soil j it particularly infests dry, sandy pastures. 



GENVS F.— ARCTIUM. Linn. 



Pericline of numerous slender imbricated phyllaries, attenuated 

 into a long subulate spreading point hooked at the apex. Elorets 

 all equal, perfect. Eilamcnts free, papillose ; anthers furnished at 

 the base with 2 glabrous filiform appendages, and acuminated at 

 the summit. Achenes oblong-ovoid, laterally compressed, with 

 elevated longitudinal lines ; cpigynous disk surrounded by an 



