WEEDS OP THE THISTLE FAMILY. 



165 



gray, ribbed, J inch long; pappus of several rows of slender hair-like 

 white bristles. (Fig. 125.) 



Very common in pastures, along roadsides, fence-rows and in 

 old abandoned fields. June-Sept. One of the worst of pasture 



weeds, its long basal root-leaves 

 of the first season spreading over 

 and smothering out the blue- 

 grass. The tap-root runs deep 

 and the plant can be easily killed 

 by cutting below its crown. This 

 should be done in the late au- 

 tumn or early spring with hoe or 

 spud; repeated mowing before 

 the seeds ripen is a less efficient 

 remedy. 



Armed below with many a 

 stiff spine and prickly involucral 

 scale, the purple head of this 

 thistle is itself more soft and 

 yielding than velvet. To an eye 

 which appreciates solid beauty 

 the first thistle blossom of the 

 year, opening from the apex of 

 the central stalk, is one of the 

 most attractive of our wild-wood 

 flowers. Of what a number of cylindrical rays is it composed! 

 How compactly and prettily are they grouped! "What a soft and 

 delicate expanse they unfold to view ! The purple head is erect — 

 a great eye, as it were, gazing up into the blue ethereal depths 

 above — purple looking into blue — and mayhap gathering from the 

 latter a deeper hue to add unto its loveliness. 



This thistle is the national flower of Scotland, adopted, so the 

 story goes, because it frustrated the capture of that country by the 

 Danes a thousand years and more ago. While stealing upon a 

 Scotch town after night, one of the Danes stepped on a thistle and 

 cried out with pain. His cry awakened the Scots and saved their 

 town. Beneath the Scottish emblem which bears the thistle there 

 is often placed the motto: "No one injures me with impunity." 



In England the thistle was also sacred to Thor the god of 

 thunder, and was supposed to be colored by the lightning. To 

 dream of being surrounded by it was considered a propitious sign, 

 foretelling that the person so dreaming would soon receive some 

 pleasing news 



Fig. 125. a, piece of main stem with leaf; b, flower 

 head; c, seed with pappus; d, seed with pappus de- 

 tached. (After Dewey.) 



