Fig. 1635. Kinds of Globe Thistle (1-3, 5)

The Description.

            1. Globe Thistle hath a very long stalk, and leaves jagged, great, long, and broad, deeply gashed, strong of smell, somewhat green on the upper side, and on the nether side whiter and downy: the flowers grow forth of a round head like a globe, which standeth on the tops of the stalks; they are white and small, with blue threads in the midst: the seed is long, with hairs of a mean length: the root is thick and branched.

            2. There is another Globe Thistle that hath lesser leaves, but more full of prickles, with round heads also: but there groweth out of them besides the flowers, certain long and stiff prickles.

            3. There is likewise another kind resembling the first in form and figure, but much lesser, and the flowers thereof tend more to a blue.

            4. There is also another Globe Thistle, which is the least, and hath the sharpest prickles of all the rest: the head is small; the flowers whereof are white, like to those of the first.

            5. There is a certain other kind hereof, yet the head is not so round, that is to say, fatter and broader above; out of which spring blue flowers; the stalk hereof is slender, and covered with a white thin down: the leaves are long, gashed likewise on both sides, and armed in every corner with sharp prickles.

Fig. 1636. Woolly Thistle (6)

            6. There is another called the Down-Thistle, which riseth up with thick and long stalks. The leaves thereof are jagged, set with prickles, white on the nether side: the heads be round and many in number, and are covered with a soft down, and sharp prickles standing forth on every side, being on the upper part fraughted with purple flowers all of strings: the seed is long, and shineth, as doth the seed of many of the Thistles.

The Place.

            They are sown in gardens, and do not grow in these countries that we can find. So saith our author, but I have found the sixth by Pocklington and in other places of the Wolds in Yorkshire. Mr. Goodyer also found it in Hampshire.

The Time.

            They flower and flourish when the other Thistles do.

The Names.

            Fuchsius did at the first take it to be Chamæleon niger, bur afterwards being better advised, he named it Spina peregrina, and Carduus globosus. Valerius Cordus doth fitly call it Sphærocephalus: the same name doth also agree with the rest, for they have a round head like a ball or globe. Most would have the first to be that which Matthiolus setteth down for Spina alba: this Thistle is called in English, Globe Thistle, and Ball Thistle.

            The downy or woolly headed Thistle is called in Latin, being destitute of another name, Eriocephalus, of the woolly head: in English, Down Thistle or Woolly Headed Thistle. It is thought by divers to be that which Bartholomus Urbeveteranus and Angelus Palea, Franciscan friars, report to be called Corona fratrum, or Friar's Crown: but this Thistle doth far differ from that, as is evident by those things which they have written concerning Corona fratrum; which is thus: In the borders of the kingdom of Aragon towards the kingdom of Castile we find another kind of Thistle, which groweth plentifully there, by common ways, and in wheat fields, &c. vide Dodonæus Pempt. 5. lib. 5. cap. 5.

The Temperature and Virtues.

            Concerning the temperature and virtues of these Thistles we can allege nothing at all.