THE TEAZLE FAMILY 
[ORDER XL. DIPSACEyE] 
T HIS family is characterised by its small stalkless flowers, crowded together in a dense 
mass or head on the top of the flower-stalks. It is distinguished from the Daisy Family 
(Composite) by the stamens being free, not united by their filaments into a tube. Each individual 
flower is somewhat similar to those of the last three orders. The petals are 4 or 5 in number, united 
at the base into a tube, which is inserted on the top of the calyx-tube above the seedcase, the two 
latter adhering together and so producing an inferior fruit, which is small and dry. The fruits, like 
the flowers, are crowded together into a head. 
It is a small order of herbs found in the temperate regions of the Old World, without any 
species of any great value. The heads of the Fuller’s Teazle (Dipsacus Fullonum) are used in 
the dressing of woollen cloth. There have been attempts to supersede its use by the employment 
of machinery, but all have failed. The dried cylindrical heads of flowers, which are covered with 
stiff hooked spines, are fixed in a cylinder, which, revolving rapidly, dresses the surface of the 
cloth, removing all loose particles of wool and raising the nap without injuring the fabric, as the 
fine hooks break directly they are held by the real substance of the cloth. 
TEAZLE. (DIPSACUS, LINN.) — Flowers small, stalkless, lilac or whitish, in oblong or round 
clusters (heads), surrounded with stiff, spreading, spiny bracts (involucre). Calyx-tube combined 
with the seedcase, with a small cup-shaped border ; petals 4, united into a funnel-shaped tube and 
separating into 4 lobes ; stamens 4 ; carpel 1. Fruit small and dry, crowned with the cup-shaped 
calyx-border, composed of 1 cell containing 1 hanging seed. Tall biennial herbs, prickly or hairy, 
with opposite, stalkless leaves usually joined together at the base (connate) and forming hollows, in 
which the water lies, and so preventing insects from crawling up the stem and stealing the honey, 
which is an enticement for winged insects, which, entering the flower from outside, carry the pollen 
from flower to flower. 
Wild Teazle. (Dipsacus sylvestris, Huds.)— As just described. The flowers small, 
numerous, lilac, in large, oblong, spiny clusters (heads), surrounded with upcurved, long, but very 
unequal, stiff, spiny bracts ; the fruits all massed together in a remarkably spiny head ; the stem 
3-6 feet high, erect, stout, angular, prickly, and the leaves long and lance-shaped, stalkless, 
opposite, entire or coarsely toothed, the upper ones united at the base (connate). [Plate 63. 
Common. Waste places, banks of streams, waysides. July — September. Biennial. 
Small Teazle. (Dipsacus pilosus, Linn.)— A similar plant, but altogether smaller and 
softer, the flowers white, in small, round, hairy heads, drooping in bud, surrounded with reflexed 
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