OP ORNAMENTAL ANNUALS. 
207 
GENUS XXXVII. 
ECHINOPS, Lin. THE GLOBE-THISTLE. 
Lin. Syst. SYNGENESIA SEGREGATA. 
Generic Chaiucteii. — Heads 1-flowered, combined, or collected on 
a globose receptacle, sessile. Proper involucrum of many series of 
scales ; outer scales hair-formed and woolly at the base ; middle ones 
fringed or ciliated at the margins ; inner ones often combined together, 
or with the orarium. Flowers all hermaphrodite, fertile ; tube of 
corolla terete, inflated at the throat ; stigmas naked. Fruit clothed 
with silky villi. Pappus composed of free, short bristles. 
1.— ECHINOPS STRIGOSUS, Lin. THE MEAGRE, OR ANNUAL, GLOBE-THISTLE. 
lucrum bristle-formed and numerous. Fruit pentagonal, clothed with 
silky villi. 
ENORiViNG Bot. Mag. t. 2109. 
Specific Character. — Leaves pinnatifid, strigose, and clothed with 
hoary tomentum beneath as well as the stem. Scales of partial invo- 
Description, &c. — This is the only annual species of Globe-Thistle ; and though it has no beauty to boast of, 
it is curious as being the plant from which the Spanish Moxa is made. The Amadou, or common vegetable 
tinder, is a fungus growing on the beech ; but the Moxa, or Spanish tinder as it is called, and which is used like 
the Amadou for lighting cigars, is said to be made from the pubescence of this plant. The annual Globe-Thistle 
is a native of Spain, and was introduced in 1729. It was, however, soon lost, but was re-introduced in 1819, by 
A. B. Lambert, Esq., to whom the botanical world owes so much, and in so many different ways. Seeds are not 
common in the seed-shops ; but when they are procured, they should be sown in the open border in March or 
April. 
GENUS XXXVIII. 
XERANTHEMUM, Toum. THE XERANTHEMUM. 
Lin. Syat. SYNGENESIA SUPERFLUA. 
Generic Character. — Heads hoterogamous. Involucral scales 
imbricated, scarious. Palcaj of receptacle scarious, tripartite. Flowers 
of the disk hermaphrodite, S-toothed ; those of the ray female. 
bilabiate. Anthers linear, bicomute at the base. Fruit of the her- 
maphrodite flowers silky, with persistent paleaceous pappus. 
1.— XERANTHEMUM ANNUUM, Lin 
Synonvmes. — X. radiatum, Lam. ; Centaurea dubia, Gmel. ; X. 
omatum, Cass. ; X.^inodorum, Mcench. 
Specific Character. — Involucrum hemispherical, quite glabrous ; 
THE ANNUAL XERANTHEMUM. 
inner leaves much longer than the rest. 
Varieties. — X. a. 2 fl. pi., our fig. 9, in Plate 34. X. a. 3 
album yi</. 10, in Plate 34. 
Description, &c. — This is by far the most elegant of all the Everlastings. It is a native of the South of 
Europe, and was first cultivated in the Oxford Botanic Garden about 1658. It requires no other care than 
sowing the seeds in the open border in February or March, or in Autumn ; as it will stand through the winter, 
unless very severe ; and autumn-sown plants are always stronger and flower earlier than those sown in spring. 
If gathered as soon as the flowers are expanded, these flowers may be kept for years ; and when the brilliancy 
of the colour of the lilac kind has faded. Philips, in his " Flora Historica" tells us that it may be restored by 
holding the flowers in the vapour of any acid. He also mentions that the seeds, or fruit, when dry, sometimes 
become detached from the receptacle in a very beautiful manner. Being kept together by the feathery nature of 
the pappus, the whole mass first swells into " a kind of dome, the feathers being attached to each other in the 
most delicate manner imaginable with the seeds downwards ; after which, as they loosen themselves, the effect is 
still more delicate and singular, as it resembles, in miniature, a number of stars being thrown out of a circular 
piece of fire- work." 
