Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The popular name of Onopordon Acanthium, a stout hoary thistle found in the south of England, and naturalized in New England: so called from its cottony white stem and leaves.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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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.
Bramble-Bees and Others Jean-Henri Fabre 1869
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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;
Bramble-Bees and Others Jean-Henri Fabre 1869
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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.
Bramble-Bees and Others Jean-Henri Fabre 1869
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