COMPOS TT.T. 153 
According to Tbeophrastus, the name of this genus of plants cornea from <rwoc 
(soos), safe, and t\Etv (echein), to have, from its yielding a salubrious juice ; but to 
which species this applies is not clear. 
SPECIES I.—S ONCHUS OLERACEUS. I Ami. 
Plate DCCCX. 
Billot, Fl Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1911. 
7. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XIX. Tab. MCCCCX. Fig. 1. 
S. ..loraceus, a & fi lnevis, Linn. Sp. Plant, p. 1117. 
Annual, with radical leaves. Stem branched. Leaves smooth, 
runcinate-pinnatifid or obovate, nearly flat, dentate, amplexicaul 
with spreading acute auricles. Anthodes in an irregular umbel. 
Phyllaries glabrous. Achenes compressed, longitudinally ribbed, 
and transversely rugose. 
Cultivated ground, roadsides, and waste places. Very common, 
and generally distributed. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Summer 
and Autumn. 
Stem 1 to 3 feet high. Leaves usually runcinate- and lyrate- 
pinnatifid, but varying much in the depth of their divisions, 
dentate but scarcely spinous at the margins ; auricles of the leaves 
in the middle of the stem acute and spreading, the uppermost 
ones often blunt and adpressed. Anthodes f to 1 inch across, 
pale-yellow, in a sub-umbellate corymb. Pericline oblong before 
Uowering, ovate-conical, abruptly acuminated from near the middle 
when in fruit. Achenes light-brown, distinctly transversely rugose. 
Leaves rather shining, bright-green, very slightly glaucous above, 
more so beneath. Plant glabrous or nearly so, rarely with jointed 
glandular hairs on the under side of the leaves and peduncles ; 
pedicels often cottony ; phyllaries rarely with a few glandular hairs. 
Smooth Soic-thistle. 
French, Laitron des Lieux cultives. German, Kohlartige Saudistel. 
The Sow-thistle is a well-known weed in every field and garden. Its hollow 
thick stems are full of a milky juice, which renders it a very acceptable food to 
most animals — pigs, sheep, and rabbits are particularly fond of it. It has also been 
used as an article of diet by men from a very early date. It is recorded by Pliny that 
Hecate regaled Theseus, before his encounter with the bull of Marathon, upon a dish 
Sow-thistles. The ancients considered them very wholesome and strengthening, 
and administered the juice medicinally for many disorders, which practice was 
continued to later times by our English herbalists. As an esculent, the Sow-thistle 
has never been much in favour here ; but as a potherb it is sometimes used by the 
peasantry in some districts. In Germany the leaves are put into salads, and we can 
VOL. V. X 
