The ANNUAL SOW-THISTLE or HARE'S LETTUCE (S. oleraceus), its
smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more
closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with
the assurance of a native. Honeybees chiefly, but many other
bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and
butterflies among other winged visitors which alight on the
flowers, from May to November, are responsible for the copious,
soft, fine, white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh
colonizing ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or
arrow-shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles,
lyrate-pinnatifid, the terminal division commonly large and
triangular; the margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use
them as a potherb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names
in the Old World is hare's palace. According to the "Grete
Herbale," if "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can
touch hym!' That was the spot Brer Rabbit was looking for when
Brer Fox lay low! Another early writer declares that "when hares
are overcome with heat they eat of an herb called hare's-lettuce,
hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this
beast the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb.
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