COMPOSITE. 35 
" Blue-bottle, thee my numbers fain would raise, 
And thy complexion challenges my praise. 
Thy countenance, like summer skies, is fair; 
But, ah ! how different thy vile manners are. 
Ceres for this excludes thee from my song, 
And swains, to gods and me a sacred throng, 
A treacherous guest, destruction thou dost bring 
To th' hospitable field where thou dost spring. 
Thou blunt'st the very reaper's sickle, and so 
In life and death becom'st the farmer's foe." 
All over Germany this is a favourite flower, and the fields in that land look much 
gayer than our own, both from the abundance of this Corn-flower and from a variety 
of other blue blossoms among the corn. Possibly the presence of these plants is not 
indicative of the best sort of husbandry. 
The expressed juice of the petals of this Knapweed makes good blue ink ; it 
dyes linen of a beautiful blue, but the colour is not permanent. The plant was named 
Cyanus, after a youthful devotee of Flora, whose chief occupation seems to have been 
loitering in the fields and weaving garlands of this and other corn-flowers : — 
" There is a flower, a purple flower, 
Sown by the wind, raised by the shower, 
O'er which Jove has breathed a powerful spell, 
The truth of whispering hope to tell. 
Now, gentle Flora, I pray thee tell 
If my lover loves me, and loves me well. 
So may the fall of the morning dew 
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue." 
The Knapweeds are sometimes called Iron-weeds, from the hard ball on which the 
florets are set ; they are like thistles, but may readily be distinguished from them by 
the absence of spines or prickles. The Centaury had a certain medicinal reputation in 
days gone by. Gerarde, after recounting other virtues of the herb, says, — " The 
Italian Physitians do give the powder of the leaves once in three days, in the quantity 
of a dram with annise or caraway seeds in wine or other liquor, which prevaileth 
against the dropsie and green sickenesse : — 
"My flowre is sweet in smell, bitter my juyce in taste, 
Which purge choler, and helps liver, that else would waste." 
Section III.— SERIDIA. _D. C. 
Phyllarics with adpresscd or spreading corneous appendages, 
palmatcly divided into short nearly equal spines, not decurrcnt 
along the borders of the phyllarics. 
