DESCRIPTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
OF 
THISTLES AND ALLIED PLANTS 
Required to be Destroyed under the Thistle Act of 1890. 
This unpretensive publication arose from a desire of facilitating 
an exact knowledge of those plants which, under the above- 
mentioned Statute, come to public notice, and should therefore 
be elucidated in a manner admitting of no uncertainty of recogni- 
tion. Chromo-lithographic illustrations, as well as descriptions 
of ail the Thistles and thistle-like plants mentioned in the Act 
are now provided, so that anywhere the various species might be 
identified locally with more ease, whereby the necessity for 
obtaining departmental information in this direction will be very 
much lessened. Further on in this introductory text the principal 
characteristics of the Thistles here under consideration have been 
briefly contrasted ; thus as far as possible tedious comparisons of 
the lengthened descriptive records will be avoided, should glances 
on the respective pictures not prove at once sufficient for any 
information anywhere sought. 
As for rural purposes it is desirable that the naming of the 
Thistles here hitherto immigrated and copiously spread should be 
as free from complication as possible, it was deemed best to adhere 
to the systematically scientific names, the vernaculars being subject 
to much local vacillation ; but to simplify the nomenclature, the 
generic name Carduus in the Linnean sense is maintained, so that 
the modern generic appellations Cnicus, Cirsium and Silybum 
are given merely as synonyms for the true Thistles. Perplexing 
popular names of very limited significance are omitted. The 
descriptions may seem unnecessarily effuse; but to distinguish the 
Thistles, now already here required to be elucidated, from allied 
additional species, which are sure at some future time to invade 
our colonial territory, a full account of each sort becomes needful. 
In identifying any kind of true Thistles, it should also be borne in 
mind that hybrids occur not rarely among them, rendering their 
specific recognition not always easy. It has further been considered 
desirable to offer some few remarks on the best method of sup- 
pression of these troublesome weeds, not for experienced farmers, 
but for such settlers, who as colonists enter on rural pursuits for 
a new occupation of life. In coping with plants of this kind 
