COMPOSITE. 



487 



2. Marsh Sowthistle. Sonchus palustris, Linn. (Fig. 584.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 935.) 



This has the large flowers, glandular 

 hairs, and general habit of the corn S., 

 but is a much taller plant ; the root- 

 stock scarcely creeps, and the leaves are 

 narrow, often 8 or 10 inches long, clasp- 

 ing the stem with long pointed auricles, 

 and either undivided or with one or two 

 pairs of long lanceolate lobes. 



In marshes, and the edges of ponds 

 and wet ditches. Said to have nearly 

 the geographical range of the corn $., 

 but appears to be more confined to east- 

 ern Europe, and nowhere common. In 

 Britain, very rare, the only certain lo- 

 calities being in the marshes of some of 

 the eastern counties of England. Fl. 

 late summer, or autumn. 



Fig. 584. 



3. Common Sowthistle. Sonchus oleraceus, Linn. 

 (Fig. 585.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 843.) 



An annual, with a rather thick hollow stem, 1 to 3 or even 4 feet 

 high, perfectly glabrous, except occasionally a very few stiff glandular 

 hairs on the peduncles. Leaves thin, pinnatifid, with a broad, heart- 

 shaped or triangular terminal lobe, bordered with irregular, pointed or 

 prickly teeth, and a few smaller lobes or coarse teeth along the broad 

 leafstalk ; the upper leaves narrow and clasping the stem with short 

 auricles. Flower-heads rather small, in a short corymbose panicle, 

 sometimes almost umbellate ; the involucres remarkably conical after 

 flowering. Florets of a pale yellow. Achenes flattened, with longi- 

 tudinal ribs often marked with transverse wrinkles or asperities, the 

 pappus of copious snow-white hairs. 



A weed of cultivation, so universally distributed over the globe, ex- 

 cept perhaps some tropical districts, that the limits of its native country 

 cannot now be fixed ; probably truly indigenous in Europe and cen- 



