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C E N T A U R E A Calcitrapa.
Star 'Thißle.
S T N G E N E S I A Polygamia-frußranea.
G en. C har. Receptacle briftly. Down fimple. Cor.
o f the radius funnel-fhaped, irregular, longer than
thofe o f the difk.
Spec. C har. Flowers feffile. C a ly x with compound
fpines. Leaves pinnatifid, with narrow dentated
fegments. Stem hairy.
S y n . Centaurea Calcitrapa. Linn. Sp. PL 1297. HudJ.
FI. An. 376. With. Bot. Arr. 946. Relh. Cant. 326.
Carduus ftellatus. Raii Syn. 196.
-T OUND not unfrequently in a barren gravelly or fandy foil
in wafte ground, by road lides, and fimilar places, beginning
to flower about Midfummer, and continuing in bloffom till de-
ftroyed by cold, being rather tender, when it becomes bleached
and blown about by the wind, difperfing its feeds as it goes.
From one annual root arifes a low, much-branched, and
bulhy Item, ftrongly furrowed, clothed with flender foft hairs,
and covered with abundance of pale-green leaves, fometimes
alternate, fometimes from luxuriance cluttered under the
branches. Thefe leaves are more or lefs deeply pinnatifid, their
fegments long, narrow, acute, and varioufly dentated; the up-
permoft are more fimple, and fcarcely divided at all. At each
divarication of the Item is a feffile flower, its calyx compofed of
very ftrong, fpinous, yellowifh, polifhed fcales, pinnated with
lefler fpines at the bafe of their terminal one. Corolla pale
purple, the radiant florets not much larger than the fertile ones
of the difk. The feeds have fcarcely any feather or down,
though the receptacle is hairy.
The flamina of this plant are faid to be irritable, contracting
when touched, and drawing their antherae downward along the
ftyle, like thofe of the artichoke, but we have never been able
to detect this curious property.