The Description.

            1. The first and largest of these hath roots consisting of great longish bulbs like those of the Asphodel: from whence arise many large stalks three or four cubits high, erected and downy: the leaves are very long and large, juicy, greenish, and cut about the edges, and set with soft prickles. At the tops of the stalks and branches grow heads round and large, out whereof come flowers consisting of abundance of threads, of a purple colour, which fly away in down. This grows wild in the mountainous meadows and in sume wet places of Austria. I have seen it growing in the garden of Mr John Parkinson, and with Mr Tuggy. It flowers in July. Clusius hath called it Cirsium maximum montanum incano folio, bulbosi radice. But he gave no figure thereof, nor any else, unless the Acanthium peregrinum in Tabernamontanus were intended for this plant, as I verily think it was. I have given you a figure which I drew some years ago by the plant itself.

            2. The root of this is long, yet sending forth of the sides creeping fibres, but not bulbous: the leaves are like those of the last mentioned, but less, and armed with sharp prickles of a greenish colour, with the middle rib white: the heads sometimes stand upright, and otherwhiles hang down; they are very prickly, and send forth flowers consisting of many elegant purple threads. The stalks are thick, crested and welted with the setting on of the leaves. This grows wild upon the seacoasts of Zeeland, Flanders, and Holland: it flowers in June and July: it is the Cirsium tertium of Dodonæus; and Cirsium maius of Lobel.

            3. This whose root is fibrous and living, sends forth lesser, narrower, and softer leaves than those of the former, not jagged or cut about their edges, nor hoary, yet set about with prickles: the stalks are crested: the heads are smaller, and grow three or four together, carrying such purple flowers as the former. This is that which Matthiolus, Gesner, and others have set forth for Cirsium: Dodonæus, for Cirsium 2, and Clusius hath it for his Cirsium quartum, or montanum secundum.

            4. The leaves of this are somewhat like those of the last described, but larger, and welting the stalks further at their setting on: they are also set with prickles about the edges: the stalks are some two cubits high, divided into sundry long slender branches: on whose tops grow little rough prickly heads, which after the flowers come to perfection do hang downwards, and at the length turn into down, amongst which lies hid a smooth shining seed. This groweth wild in divers woody paces of Hungary and Austria. It is the Cirsium of Dodonæus: the Cirsium 2 or Montanum 1 of Clusius; and Cirsium alterum of Lobel. It flowers in June: the root is about the thickness of one's little finger, fibrous also, and living.

Fig. 1677. Kinds of Soft Thistle (5,6)

            5. This sends up long narrow leaves, hairy, and set about the edges with slender prickles: out of the middle of these leaves grows up a stalk sometimes a foot, otherwhiles a cubit high, slender, stiff, and downy: upon which grow leaves somewhat broad at their setting on, and there also a little nicked or cut in: this stalk sometimes hath no branches, otherwhiles two or three long slender ones, at the tops whereof grow out of scaly heads such flowers as the common Knapweed, which at length turn into down; among which lies hid a small shining seed like the other plants of this kind. The root is made of divers thick fibres, which run in the ground, and here and there put up new heads. This plant wants no setting forth; for Clusius gives us the figure and history thereof, first by the name of Cirsium pannonicum pratense; then he gives another history thereof, with a worser figure, (which he received of Dr Thomas Penny of London) by the name of Cirsium anglicum 2. Lobel also described it, and set it forth with a figure expressing the flower already faded, by the name of Cirsium anglicum. Bauhin in his Pinax, deceived by these several expressions, hath made three several plants of this one; a fault frequent in many writers of plants. Clusius found it growing in the mountainous meadows alongst the side of the Danube in Austria: Penny, in the meadows at the foot of Ingleborough hill in Yorkshire: Lobel, in the meadows at a place called Acton in Gloucestershire. I found this only once, and that was in a meadow on this side Highgate, having been abroad with the Company of Apothecaries, and returning that way home, in the company of Mr James Walsall, William Broad, and some others. I have given you both the figures of Clusius; his own in the first place, and that of Dr. Penny in the second, but the former is the better: I have also given you that of Lobel.

            6. These also Clusius (whom I herein follow) addeth to the kinds of Thistles. This jagged leaved one, which he calleth Carduus mollior primus, hath many leaves at the root, both spread upon the ground, and also upright; and they are covered with a white and soft downiness, yet green on the upper side: they are also much divided or cut in even to the middle rib, like to the softer or tenderer leaves of the Star Thistle: they have no prickles at all upon them: out of the midst of these leaves grow up one or two stalks, round, crested, purplish, hoary, and some cubit or better high. The leaves that grow upon the lower part of the stalk are divided, those above not so: the tops of the stalks sometimes, yet very seldom, are parted into branches, which carry scaly heads containing elegant flowers made of many purple strings. The flower decaying, there succeeds a cornered seed: the root sometimes equals the thickness of one's finger, brownish, long, and somewhat fibrous. It flowers in May, and grows upon the hilly places of Hungary.

Fig. 1678. Dock-Leaved Thistle-Gentle (7)

            7. The stalk of this is some foot or better high, thick, crested, and somewhat hairy: the leaves about the root are somewhat large, and in shape like those of Bonus Henricus, (abusively called in English, Mercury) somewhat sinuated about the edges, and set with harmless prickles, green above, and very hoary underneath, like the leaves of the white Poplar: those that grow upon the stalk are lesser and narrower: out of whose bosoms towards the tops of the stalk grow out little branches which carry three, four, or more little scaly heads like those of the Blue-Bottle, or Knapweed, whereout grow thready bluish purple flowers: the seed is wrapped in down, and not unlike that of Blue-Bottle: the root is black, hard, and living, sending forth shoots on the sides. It growsupon the highest Austrian Alps, and flowers in July. Clusius calls this Carduus mollior lapathi folio.

The Temperature and Virtues.

            These plants seem by their taste to be of a moderately heating and drying faculty, but none of them are used in medicine, nor have their virtues set down by any author.