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Nothing in the local flora, not even the cotton-thistle, had prepared them for this stalk as thick as a child's wrist, crowned at a height of nine feet with a multitude of yellow balls, nor for those great leaves spreading over the ground in an enormous rosette. What will they do in the presence of such a find? They will take possession of it with no more hesitation than if it were the humble St.
There is no resemblance in appearance between the proud candelabrum of the cotton-thistle, with its red tufts, and the humble stalk of the globe-thistle, with its sky-blue capitula; between the plentiful leaves of the mullein and the scanty foliage of the St. Barnaby's thistle; between the rich silvery fleece of the woolly sage and the short hairs of the everlasting.
As long as the ground retains a few remnants of the vernal rains, this rude vegetation does not lack a certain charm, when the pyramids of the oyster-plant and the slender branches of the cotton-thistle rise above the wide carpet formed by the yellow-flowered centaury's saffron heads; but let the droughts of summer come and we see but a desolate waste, which the flame of a match would set ablaze from one end to the other.
Most of the wadding is supplied by the Compositae, particularly the following: Centaurea solsticialis, or St. Barnaby's thistle; C. paniculata, or panicled centaury; Echinops ritro, or small globe-thistle; Onopordon illyricum, or Illyrian cotton-thistle; Helichrysum staechas, or wild everlasting; Filago germanica, or common cotton-rose.
Here and there, amid their inextricable confusion, stands, like a chandelier with spreading orange flowers for lights, the fierce Spanish oyster-plant, whose spikes are strong as nails. Above it towers the Illyrian cotton-thistle, whose straight and solitary stalk soars to a height of three to six feet and ends in large pink tufts. Its armour hardly yields before that of the oyster-plant.
This plant grows wild in some parts of the north of England: the fruit has nearly the shape of the currant, and is reckoned in Norway, where it grows abundantly, a favourite dish. COTTON-THISTLE. Onopordon Acanthium. The tender stalks of this plant, peeled and boiled, are by some considered good; but it has a peculiar taste which is not agreeable to all.
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