SYNGENESIA— POLYGAMIA-^QU. Cnicus. 387 



In waste ground, and on the banks of ditches. 



/3. About London, in several places, but not common. 



Annual. June, July. 



Root tap-shaped. Herb very large and spreading, to the exclusion 

 of all other plants, for the most part not hairy nor downy. Stem 

 4 or 5 feet high, in a manured soil more lofty, branched, round, 

 solid, leafy. Leaves of a dark shining green, all their veins beau- 

 tifully bordered with white, except in the variety /3 ; their edges 

 spinous. FL. puqjle, large, solitary at the ends of the branches, 

 erect ; the stout spines of their calyx-scales very conspicuous. 

 Seeds large, polished. Down rough. 



385. CNICUS. Plume-thistle. 



Linn. Gen. 409. Juss. 1/2. Comp. ed. 4. 127. 

 Cirsium. Tourn. t. 255. Gcertn. t. 163. 



Common Cal. tumid, imbricated, of numerous, lanceolate^ 

 spinous-pointed scales, pei'manent. Cor. compound, neai'- 

 ly uniform \ fiords very numerous, equal, tubular, funnel- 

 shaped ; tube slender, recurved ; limb ovate at the base, 

 with 5 linear, nearly equidistant, segments. Filam. ca- 

 pillary, very short. AntJi. in a cylindrical tube. Germ. 

 obovate, short. Style thread-shaped, slightly prominent. 

 Stigma oblong, more or less cloven, naked. Seed-vessel 

 none but the converging unaltered calyx. Seed polished, 

 obovate, with a slender, terminal, short, cylindrical point. 

 Down sessile, feathery, very long, annular at the base, 

 embracing the point of the seed, and, when that shrinks, 

 deciduous. Recept. nearly flat, beset with bristly, or very 

 narrow chaffy, scales or hairs, as long as the tubes of the 

 florets. 



Prickly herbaceous plants, like those of the last genus, from 

 which the present differs chiefly in the down of the seeds 

 being evidently feathery, not merely rough. Some spe- 

 cies are, as in Carduus, imperfectly dioecious, ^ther ac- 

 cidentally or constantly. Perhaps these two genera ought 

 to be united, the distinction above mentioned being of 

 no more real importance than in Serratula, where it is 

 not regarded. But the great number of species in Car- 

 duus and Cnicus makes it commodious to separate them, 

 even by an artificial character, which in itself is easy and 

 obvious. 



* Leaves decurrent. Stem winged. 



1 . C. lanceolatus. Spear Plume-thistle. 



Leaves decurrent, pinnatifid, hispid, with variously-spread- 



2c 2 



