The TOUKO HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 58. SEPTEMBER 1884. Vol. 5. 



THISTLES 



(Carduus). 

 By J. P. Soutter, Bishop Auckland. 



U T^HOU garden troubler, wherefore art 



thou here, 

 Draining the juices from the weary soil, 

 And choking with thy rank, luxuriant growth 

 Earth's fairest children ? Quickly thou 



would'st make— 

 If unarrested by the gardener's hand — 

 The loveliest spot a tangled wilderness, 

 Launching thy winged seeds on every breeze 

 With hateful perseverance." 



In the far off time, when the world 

 was young, we are told that the earth 

 was cursed, the result being it brought 

 forth thistles. Coming into existence 

 with such an ominous destiny, their 

 evil repute has clung to them all 

 through the ages ; for in these latter 

 days many a hearty malediction has 

 been hurled at their heads by the pro- 

 gressive agriculturist, who, at the same 

 time, has ruthlessly extirpated and 

 mercilessly mowed them down. Spite 

 of all that, the hardy thistle has sturdily 

 held its ground, and to-day rears its 

 purple head as proudly, and flourishes 

 as ubiquitously as in the days when 

 the wise man used it to point the 

 moral of the sluggard's garden. What- 



ever may have been the chosen haunt 

 of the typical original ancestor of the 

 present-day thistles, we now find that 

 all soils and situations are alike suitable 

 to its multitudinous descendants. In 

 our own country we have a round 

 dozen of species, and go where you 

 will some one or other of them are 

 sure to be met with, whether you 

 traverse the swampy bog, or sandy 

 downs, the richly cultivated field, or 

 stony and sterile pasture ; indeed the 

 more arid and unpromising the situa- 

 tion, the more luxuriant and abundant 

 do the thistles become. It is not 

 within the scope of the present paper 

 to give critical descriptions of every 

 one of these species ; besides, one half 

 of them are solely confined to the 

 southern half of England, and only 

 half-a-dozen are of general distribution. 

 Of these perhaps the best known and 

 most typical is the spear thistle ( C. 

 lanceolatus) . This is the most robust 

 of our common species, attaining a 

 height of three feet, stout, rigid, erect, 

 and branched. It is biennial, pro- 

 ducing in autumn spreading rosettes 

 of root-leaves, which lie along the 

 ground, and are often a foot or more 



