118 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



if anything 1 , appears to stimulate the underground stem 

 to fresh endeavours. In pulling- this thistle up we may 

 succeed in drawing out, after a good pull, a long and 

 slender root, and may duly congratulate ourselves ; but 

 on a closer examination we shall find that it has broken 

 off, after all, in the ground, and our labour is therefore 

 vain, for the root goes down a great depth, and then 

 branches horizontally in the ground. Any part that is 

 left in the soil retains its vitality, and we soon find the plant 

 reappearing above ground. Curtis, in his " Flora Lon- 

 dinensis," records an experiment illustrating this so well 

 that we are glad to reproduce it, especially as our old author 

 is but rarely met with : " On April 1st, 1778, I planted 

 in a garden a piece of the root of this thistle, about the 

 size of a goose-quill, and two inches long, with a small 

 head of leaves cut off from the main root just as it was 

 springing out of the ground ; by the 2nd of the November 

 following this small root had thrown out shoots, several of 

 which had extended themselves to the distance of eight 

 feet, some had even thrown up leaves five feet from the 

 original root ; most of the shoots which had thus far ex- 

 tended themselves were about six inches underground, others 

 had penetrated to the depth of two feet and a half ; the 

 whole together when dug up and washed from the earth 

 weighed four pounds. In the spring of 1779, contrary to 

 my expectation, this thistle again made its appearance on 

 and about the place where the small piece was originally 

 planted. There were between fifty and sixty young heads, 

 which must have sprung from the roots which had eluded 

 the gardener's search, though he was particularly careful in 

 extracting them." The creeping thistle is known in Wales 

 as the Ysgallen gyffrediii yr ar } and Curtis calls it the cursed 



