REPORT FOR 1907. 
295 
(cf. ‘Report B.E.C.’ 1904, p. 25, 1906, p. 229, for other reasons for 
keeping it distinct from C. pratensis). It agrees very well with 
the description of C. iuberosus in ‘Sowerby’ V. 13 [the anthodes are, 
however, often not solitary], and produces good fruit. Reports 
of experts given below seem to place beyond a doubt its identity 
with C. tuberosus^ Roth. 
I have in my herbarium a poor specimen of C. tuberosus from 
Avebury, coll. G. C. Druce ; a cultivated specimen of the same, 
comm. A. B. Jackson ; and a plant [wrongly assigned in my ‘ Flora 
of Glamorganshire ’ to C. Woodtvardii^ from a small patch found in 
the dredged mud of the Cardiff new docks, a locality many miles 
away from Nash Pt. There is also a specimen in St. Brody’s 
herbarium at Gloucester labelled ‘ see Carduiis Forsteri, Syme. 
Mr. Dyer thinks it Woodwardii.'' ‘A fine patch of this rare thistle 
grows near the Stonehouse Station, Glouc., 1868.’ There is no 
root present. It is not possible, I believe, to distinguish these last 
two specimens from C. tuberosus^ Roth. But it is doubtful if either 
of them was native. 
The Avebury plant in cultivation shews certain changes. The 
phyllaries become more decided and contrasted in colouring, and 
much more clearly veined. The leaves become more clearly veined, 
stronger and more rigid ; as well as broader, through the lengthen- 
ing of the lobes. 
The wild Glamorganshire plant is more rigid than that from 
Avebury, with thicker and more solid leaves. It is stouter and 
taller ; and more luxuriant, branching lower down the stem. The 
leaves have a broader rachis and are larger. The veins of the 
phyllaries are much less prominent; their mucro longer. Under 
cultivation the leaf lobing is more coarse and sometimes almost 
disappears. The phyllaries do not develop their veining. The 
Cardiff and Stonehouse plants are somewhat intermediate between 
the Wilts and Nash Point plants in these respects. 
Professor Paul Ascherson writes : “Your plant agrees tolerably 
well with the German one. I write but ‘ tolerably,’ because there 
is a slight difference in the form of the leaves ; the acau/^-liking 
form, exhibited in all leaves of your plant, occurs in nearly all of 
my German specimens only in the primordial ones : in the majority 
of leaves the segments are cleft into lanceolate laciniae. But there 
are specimens from a locality in Bohemia (where the Cirsium 
bulbosuin is only an alien, introduced with grass seed) agreeing very 
well with yours. I think it very probable that at your locality 
the plant is a native. In Western France the species occurs also 
in very scattered localities, as in Brittany and Normandy. The 
hypothesis that the English plant is a hybrid between Cirsium 
acaule and anglicum or even Carduus crispus seems to me to be 
highly improbable.” — H. J. Riddelsdell. I compared this with 
Lambert’s original Boynton specimen preserved at Kew, and it 
