22 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
where it is plentiful ; rare in Scotland, where it occurs at intervals 
along the East coast as far as Kincardine and Moray, and on the 
"West to the Isle of Arran. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Biennial. Summer 
and Autumn. 
Root a tap-root, producing the first year a tuft of strap- 
shaped-oblanceolate, nearly flat leaves, hoary-floccose, especially 
beneath, very spinous, but with the spines short and weak. 
Flowering-stem 3 inches to 2 feet high, purple, slightly arach- 
noid, not winged. Leaves decreasing in length and increasing 
in width from the bottom to the top, strongly veined, spinous and 
waved at the edges. Anthodes f to 1 inch across, or, including the 
ray, 1^ at the extremity of the stem and branches, which latter 
frequently exceed the primary anthode. Pericline with leaves at 
the base, outer phyllaries green, tinged with purple, the inner 
very long, and straw-yellow, spreading and forming a false ray 
round the dark-purple florets. Achenes yellowish-brown, with 
adpressed silky hairs. Pappus plumose, the hairs cohering irre- 
gularly in twos or threes at the base. Pales of the clinanth cut 
at the apex into subulate segments rather longer than the pappus. 
Plant pah '-green, the leaves rigid, coriaceous, and scarcely altering 
alter the plant is dead, except in colour. 
Carline Thistle. 
French, Carline Commune. German, Gemeine Eberwurz. 
The original name of this plant was Carolina, so called after Charlemagne, of 
whom the legend relates that "a horrible pestilence broke out in his army and carried 
off many thousand men, which greatly troubled the pious emperor. Wherefore 
he prayed earnestly to God ; and in his sleep there appeared to him an angel, who 
shot an arrow from a cross-bow, telling him to mark the plant upon which it 
fell, for that with that plant he might cure his army of the pestilence. And so it 
really happened." The herb so miraculously indicated was this thistle. It does not, 
however, seem to possess any active properties, though Withering says it is valuable in 
hysterical cases. The flowers expand in dry and close in moist weather : they retain 
this property for a long time, and form rustic hygrometers. The presence of the 
Carline Thistle indicates a very poor soil ; it particularly infests dry, sandy pastures. 
GENUS V— ARCTIUM. Linn. 
Pericline of numerous slender imbricated phyllaries, attenuated 
into a Long subulate spreading point hooked at the apex. Florets 
all equal, perfect. Filaments free, papillose; anthers furnished at 
the base with 2 glabrous filiform appendages, and acuminated at 
the summit. Achenes oblong-ovoid, laterally compressed, with 
elevated longitudinal lines; epigynous disk surrounded by an 
