COMPOSITE. 3 
laries spreading, bayonet-shaped, spinous-pointcd. Corolla glabrous. 
Pappus pale brownish-red, twice as long as the achene. 
I3y roadsides and in waste places, particularly in chalky and 
sandy soils. Not uncommon in England ; rare and very doubtfully 
native in Scotland, where it occurs as far North as Fife. 
England, Scotland. Biennial. Late Summer 
and Autumn. 
Stem 18 inches to 5 feet high, very stout, with wings broader 
than its own diameter. Radical leaves sessile, deeply sinuated; 
stem-leaves oblong-elliptical, less deeply sinuated than the root- 
leaves, their bases decurrent into the wings of the stem. Pericline 
1 J to 2 inches across, with very numerous green phyllaries clothed 
with white cobweb-like hairs and with a strong nerve excurrent into 
a yellowish spine. Corolla light purple. Stamens with the con- 
nective produced beyond the anther-lobes into a long tapering 
point. Achenes J inch long, greyish-brown, marbled with black, 
transversely wrinkled. Hairs of the pappus clothed with smaller 
hairs directed towards the point. Plant hoary, the young leaves 
white. 
Scotch Thistle. 
French, Onoperde Acanthe. German, Gemeine Krcbs, Esels Distel. 
This Thistle is also called the Cotton Thistle from its downy appearance. The 
common name Thistle, which is applied to many other plants, is essentially the same 
word in all kindred languages, and comes from jristel, from pydcm, to stab. This 
species is the national emblem of Scotland, and is one of the stitfest and most thorny 
of its race. It is the badge of the Stuarts, and its sharp spines well agree with 
Gerarde's description of the plant. He describes it as " set full of most horrible 
sharpc prickles, so that it is impossible for man or beast to touch the same without 
groat hurt and danger." The origin of the Thistle as the national emblem is thus 
given by tradition. 
" When the Danes invaded Scotland, it was deemed un warlike to attack an 
enemy in the darkness of the night instead of a pitched battle by day ; but on one 
occasion the invaders resolved to avail themselves of stratagem, and in order to 
prevent their tramp being heard, they marched barefooted. They had thus neared 
the Scottish force unobserved, when a Dane unluckily stepped his foot on a superb 
prickly Thistle and uttered a cry of pain, which immediately aroused the Scotch, who 
discovered the stealthy foe and defeated them with great slaughter. The Thistle was 
immediately adopted as the insignia of Scotland." The Order of the Thistle wa 
revived or instituted A. D. 1510, by James V., who caused it to consist of hirasel 
as sovereign, and twelve knights, in imitation of Christ and the twelve apostles. In 
the then dawning Reformation, this imitation was considered irreverent, and the order 
was discontinued, but revived again by .Janus the Seventh of Scotland and Second of 
England, who created eight knights, May 29th, 1G87. The first Scottish coins on 
which the Thistle appears, are those of James V. The ancients supposed that this 
Thistle was a specific in cancerous complaints. The receptacle and young steins are 
