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Some variations useful to him have probably arisen suddenly, or by one step; many botanists, for instance, believe that the fuller's teasel, with its hooks, which can not be rivalled by any mechanical contrivance, is only a variety of the wild Dipsacus; and this amount of change may have suddenly arisen in a seedling.
Then Robert Robin felt so fine that he flew up to the top of a hickory tree and sang his "Pick Pickles" song. "Pick pickles! Pick pickles! A teasel tick tickles! A peasel pick pickles! A teasel pick pickles!" And old Mister Woodpecker stopped drumming on his tree, and looked at Robert Robin and laughed and said: "Every time I hear you sing that foolish song, I have to laugh in spite of myself!"
But, with all their ingenious machinery, the cloth-weavers have not yet been able to supersede the use of the teasel, by which the loose fibres of wool are raised to the surface to form, when cut and sheared, the pile or nap.
The twisted teasels lose their decussation, but in doing so the leaves are not left in a disorderly dispersion, but a distinct new arrangement takes its place, which is to be assumed as the normal one for the ancestors of the teasel family. The case is to be considered as one of atavism.
I miss the heath, its yellow furze, Mole-hills and rabbit-tracks, that lead Through besom-ling and teasel burrs That spread a wilderness indeed: The Woodland oaks, and all below That their white powder'd branches shield, The mossy paths the very crow Croaks music in my native field.
In other respects they exactly imitate the teasel cups showing thereby how these cups may probably have originated. In numerous cases of anomalies some accidental structures are parallel to specific characters, while others are not, being obviously injurious to their bearers. So it is also with the double ascidia.
This quality is the alternate position of the leaves, which has been replaced in the teasel family by a grouping in pairs. In order to prove the validity of this assertion, it will be necessary to discuss two points separately, viz.: relative positions of the leaves, and the manner in which the alternate position causes the stems to become twisted.
My twisted valerian is a poor race, and hardly anything can be done with it. Perhaps, in other countries the corresponding rich race may be hidden somewhere, but I have never had the good fortune of finding it. This good fortune however, I did have with the wild teasel or Dipsacus sylvestris.
I extract the following passage from his volume, "Les Abeilles": 'The cotton-pressing females have the edge of their mandibles cut out into five or six little teeth, which make an instrument admirably suited for scraping and removing the hairs from the epidermis of the plants. It is a sort of comb or teasel.
Whence he had issued I could not guess; but there he stood behind us, nodding and smiling a squab, thick-set old fellow with a great bald head, and, for all the hair on his face, a tuft like a teasel sprouting from his under lip.
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