Localities. — On the borders of corn-fields, and on ditch banks, and by road 
sides, on clay soil : frequent in ENGLAND and IRELAND. — Dr. Johnston thinks 
the Pier-road near the Limekiln, Berwick-upon-Tweed, is probably its most north- 
ern station, as it has not yet found a place in the Scottish Flora. 
Root tapering, and somewhat branched. Stem 2 or 3 feet high, 
upright, cylindrical, furrowed, solid, leafy, very much branched ; 
usually of a reddish-purple colour, clothed with scattered, stiff, 
horizontal, bristle-like hairs. Lower-leaves inversely egg-spear- 
shaped ; upper-leaves heart-shaped, clasping the stem, and, like 
most other parts of the plant, beset with rigid, very pungent bristles, 
each of which springs from a white tubercle or wart. Flowers soli- 
tary, on grooved peduncles. Inner scales of the Involucrum keeled, 
keel fringed, ending in a fringed awn from a little below the sum- 
mit of the scale (see fig. 2.). Outer scales spreading, heart-shaped, 
pointed, fringed with prickleSj and terminated by a sharp prickle- 
like awn. Corolla about an inch in diameter, of a bright golden 
yellow. Seed (fig. 5.) shining, of a red orange colour, curiously 
and beautifully wrinkled or furrowed transversely. Pappus (fig. 5.) 
the length of the inner scales of the involucrum, on a stalk 3 or 4 
lines long ; rays (fig. 6.) feathery. 
The whole plant abounds with a somewhat milky, very hitter, 
juice. It has been sometimes used as a pot-herb, but it can only 
be eaten when young, when it is said to be not disagreeable. 
The flowers open about four or five o’clock in the morning, and 
do not close before noon ; sometimes they remain expanded much 
later. 
A nearly smooth variety of this plant is represented in Hermann’s 
Paradisus Batavus, p. 185. 
“ See Nature gay, as when she first began 
With smiles alluring her admirer man; 
She spreads the morning over eastern hills, 
Earth glitters with the drops the night distils ; 
The sun obedient at her call appears. 
To fling his glories o’er the robes she wears ; 
Banks clothed with flowers, groves filled with sprightly sounds, 
The yellow tilth, green meads, rocks, rising grounds, 
Streams edged with osiers, fattening every field 
Where’er they flow, now seen and now concealed ; 
From the blue rim where skies and mountains meet, 
Down to the very turf beneath thy feet.” — Cowpeii. 
