COMPOSITE 423 



Carduus pycnocephalus, Linn. Slender Thistle 



First noted by the author in 1894 as abundant near Oamaru, and 

 also in the West Taieri district. Cheeseman in the Manual (1906) 

 records it as not uncommon in fields and waste places in both islands. 

 (FL, Jan. to Feb.) 



Its seeds are a common impurity in certain farm seeds, especially 

 oats. This species was included in the Second Schedule of the Noxious 

 Weeds Act by Special Gazette Notice of 12th October, 1905. 



Speaking of the grass-denuded districts of Central Otago, Mr D. 

 Petrie says of this species : 



Wherever it is plentiful it affords a very considerable bulk of highly 

 nutritious feed. There are experienced runholders who reckon it little 

 inferior to rape. The young plants that shoot up after the earliest autumn 

 rains form the main and almost the sole winter feed in the desert lowlands. 

 The old dry and withered stems are also completely eaten out at this season 

 of scarcity. A second growth from more dormant seeds usually starts up 

 in early spring, so that its utility is not restricted to the hardest time of 

 the year. Though the earlier plants are so closely eaten back that they 

 would hardly be expected to flower, they later on send out secondary 

 shoots from the axils of the stem-leaves, and then these produce enough 

 seed to renew the crop. In other circumstances the winged thistle might 

 be ranked as a "noxious weed," but it is the runholders' sheet-anchor in 

 extensive areas of Central Otago and elsewhere. 



Carduus crispus, Linn. Curled Thistle 



Recorded by the Agricultural Department as growing near Christ- 

 church in 191 1. 



All species of Carduus were included in the list of noxious seeds 

 in the Noxious Weeds Act of 1900 ; and they were also included in 

 the Second Schedule by Special Gazette Notice of 20th June, 1901. 



Cnicus lanceolatus, Willd. Common Thistle ; Spear Thistle 



This species was no doubt introduced into the country at a very 

 early date, but is first recorded in Hooker's list in 1864. It is abundant 

 everjrwhere. In the earliest days of cultivation, especially in such 

 districts as Canterbury and Otago, when large areas were cleared of 

 native vegetation and brought under the plough, the thistle was 

 extraordinarily abundant, and took absolute possession of the soil at 

 first. It assumed, temporarily, all the characteristics of a "pure 

 formation." I passed through hundreds of acres of newly ploughed 

 land in the Oamaru district in 1873, when the thistles covered the 

 ground to a height of 6 ft. and it was only possible to get through 

 where cart-tracks had been made, and the growth was not more 

 than 3 ft. high. Sometimes this dense growth prevailed for a second 



