124 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



are closely oppressed, but quite destitute of the hard 

 prickly extremities so characteristic of the other kinds of 

 thistle. 



In an old botanico-astrological book we find that the plant 

 is considered to be under Capricorn, and therefore beneath 

 the influence of both Saturn and Mars, one, it is held, ridding 

 melancholy by sympathy, and the other by antipathy, though 

 we should have thought that in the latter case the Jovian 

 influence would have been invoked. The author prescribes a 

 decoction of the thistle in wine, adding that it makes a man 

 as merry as a cricket. How far this effect may be produced 

 by the wine, and how far by the thistle, is possibly an open 

 question. Solomon prescribes a very similar remedy, only 

 without the thistle. 



