4, ENGLISH BOTANY. 
sometimes boiled and eaten as artichokes. The cotton is occasionally collected from 
the -tern, and we have heard of pillows being stuffed with it. Gerarde tells us that 
Dioscorides saith — "That the leaves and roots hereof are a remedy for those that 
have their bodies drawn backwards; thereby Galen supposeth that these are of tem- 
perature hot." 
GENUS II— S I L Y B U M. Vaill. 
Pericline of imbricated pliyllarics, the exterior and middle ones 
dilated into a spinous-dentate foliaceous appendage, longly acumi- 
nated into a stout spine, interior ones entire without an appendage. 
Florets all equal, perfect. Filaments cohering so as to form a 
tube, papillose; anthers with a very short acuminated point. 
Achenes obovatc-ovoid, laterally compressed, without raised lines ; 
epigynous disk surrounded by a horny entire border. Pappus 
caducous, consisting of denticulate hairs arranged in several rows, 
and united into a ring at the base; the ring furnished at the upper 
bonier with a crown of minute smooth connivent hairs. Clinanth 
lit shy, not pitted, hairy. 
Large biennial herbs with branched stems. Leaves amplexicaul, 
sinuatc-spinous or spinous-dentate, generally glabrous, usually 
variegated with white. Pericline large, sub -globose. Flowers 
purplish-rose, varying to white. 
The name of this genus comes from oiXvfioc (silubos), a thistle-kind of plant 
which bore eatable sprouts. 
SPECIES I— S ILYBUM MARIANUM. Gaertn. 
Plate DCLXXX1. 
[e. PL Germ, et Helv. Vol. XV. Tab. DCCCLXXXII. 
Carduus Marianus, Linn. Hook. ii Am. Brit. Fl. p. 23G. Benth. Handbook Brit Bot. 
).. 313. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 97G. 
Stem erect, branched. Leaves amplexicaul, with blunt half- 
kidneyshaped auricles, sinuated, spinous, glabrous on both sides, 
variegated witli white above. Phyllaries concave, lanceolate, with 
recurved foliaceous Bpinous-pointed appendages with spinous 
margins; inner phyllaries entire, rough. 
In waste ground and by old buildings, but probably not truly 
native. Not uncommon in England; rare in Scotland, where 
it occurs about Berwick, Dumbarton, Edinburgh, in Aberdeenshire 
am! Forfarshire. 
England, [Scotland], Ireland. Biennial. Late Summer 
and Autumn. 
