SYNGENESIA. ASQUALIS. Cakduus. 
915 
flowers, sessile at the very top of the stem. Smith states that it is not 
known either wild or cultivated in Britain. 
Melancholy Thistle. (Gaelic: Cluas-an-fheidh. E.) C. heterophyllus. 
Linn. Oed. E. Bot. C. helenioides. Huds. Lightf. With. Ed. 3 and 4. 
Hull. Cirsium Britannicum Clusii repens. Raii. Syn. Bauh. Mill. 
Cnieus heterophyllus. Willd. Hook. Sm. Grev. E.) Mountainous pas¬ 
tures in Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Wales. Ray. 
Coppice near Giggleswick, in Skirrith wood, and in the pastures about 
Bordley, near Malham. Curtis. Mulbarton, near Norwich. Mr. Crowe. 
Between Shap and Orton, Westmoreland. Mr. Woodward. About 
Hamsterley and Witton, Durham. Mr. Robson. Pentland Hills, near 
Currie. Dr. Greville. Roslin and Auchindenny woods. Maughan. 
Hook. Scot. Said to be more frequent in the Highlands. E.) 
P. July—(Aug. E.)* 
C. acau'lis. Stemless: calyx smooth : (down feathery. E.) 
E. Bot. 161 — Jacq. Ic. iii. (579—FI. Dan. 1114. E.)—Clus. ii. 156.1— 
Loh. Obs. 480. 3, and Ic. ii. 5. 1— Ger. Em. 1158— Parle. 969. 4 — J. 
ii. a. 63. 1— II. Ox. vii. 32. 12— Pet. 21. 6— Barr. 493— Trag. 852 — 
Lonic. i. 68. 1. 
Root-leaves spreading in a circle close to the ground, stalked, wing-cleft; 
wings irregularly lobed, and waved, angular, thorny at the edge, green 
on both sides, hairy towards the base. Flowering-heads one or more, 
rarely sessile. Fruit-stalks one to two inches high, hairy. Calyx , lower 
scales short, oval-spear-shaped, upper spear-shaped, stiff, without thorns. 
Blossom even with the anthers. Style longer. Summit deeply cloven. 
Seed very small. Down long, feathered. Woodw. Blossom purple^ 
large. Mr. Relhan informs me, that he once found a plant on Gogmagog 
Hills with a stem five inches high, bearing three flowers, and a leaf 
similar to the root-leaves under each flower: and thus it appears when 
cultivated in a garden. 
(Mr. Oade Roberts has observed, on Painswick Hill, a variety with flowers? 
perfectly white. E.) 
Dwarf Thistle. ( C . acaulis. Linn. Cnieus acaulis. Willd. Hook. Sm* 
E. ) Mountainous and rocky dry pastures, especially in calcareous 
soil. (But too common in many fields, and upland grounds, in Dorset¬ 
shire. Pulteney. E.) Blackheath, near London. Dry heaths and com¬ 
mons in Norfolk, very frequent. Mr. Woodward. Dry heaths on the- 
Western side of the county of Durham. Mr. Robson. (Dover, Box-hill,. 
Newmarket; but very rarely, if ever, found in the north of England. Mr- 
* (The Thistle has long been accounted the emblem of Scotland, as the Rose is sym¬ 
bolical of England, the Shamrock of Ireland. It appears to have been substituted by the’ 
town council of Edinburgh on their banner, to the exclusion of their patron, St. Giles,, 
about the middle of the fifteenth century; a circumstance probably originating in the* 
dawning light of the Reformation, and an increasing antipathy to popery. This species; 
in particular has been deemed the badge of the house of Stuart, whose princes were wont 
to wear the Cluas-an-fheidh in their crown or bonnet. It is, indeed, as the token flower 
of resistance, far less illustrative of the national motto, “ Nemo me impune lacessit 
than several of its congeners; though but too significant of the fallen condition of thafc 
ill starred race, since, (according to the Jacobite song), 
“ The die was risk’d and foully cast 
Upon Culloden day,” E.) 
