THE MELANCHOLY THISTLE. 123 



undoubtedly a national badge in 1503, as in that year Dunbar 

 wrote a poetic allegory entitled, " The Thrissill and the 

 Rois," on the union of James IV. and the Princess Mar- 

 garet of England. The expressive motto was not added till 

 1579, when we find it surrounding the thistle that occupies 

 the centre of the coinage of James VI. About the middle 

 of the fifteenth century, in the dawning light of the Re- 

 formation, the Town Council of Edinburgh substituted 

 the thistle on their banner for their old patron saint, St. 

 Giles. The melancholy thistle, our present species, was 

 one of the personal badges of the ill-fated House of Stuart. 

 They at other times bore the cotton thistle (Onopordum 

 Acanthiuni). 



The melancholy thistle is a plant of the North. It is 

 abundantly met with in moist mountain pastures in 

 Scotland and Northern England, but comes no farther 

 south than the northern counties of Wales. It flowers 

 throughout the months of July and August. The plant is a 

 perennial, and has a long and creeping root. The stems are 

 tall and stout, often deeply furrowed, and more or less 

 covered with a white and cotton-like down. The whole 

 plant rises to a height of some three or more feet, and has a 

 certain lightness and grace that render it decidedly attractive 

 to the lover of plants. The leaves clasp the stem at their 

 bases, and while dark-green above, have their under-surfaces 

 thickly covered with white and down-like hairs. Unlike 

 most of the thistles, the leaves are not continued down the 

 stem at all, and they are very much simpler in form than 

 the ordinary type of thistle-foliage. The edges of the 

 leaves have small bristle-like teeth. The flower-heads are 

 borne singly on long stalks ; and the bracts that form the 

 involucre, the cup-like form whence the blossoms spring, 



