Pop Goes the Teasel

Teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris) was cultivated in Europe as an ornamental and brought to America by accident as seeds in hay. Here, their spiny flowerheads were used in textile mills to tease, or raise the nap of the cloth. This seemingly ancient method was preferred over the use of metal devices, because when an obstruction was encountered the spines would break instead of tearing the fabric.

More prickly than a thistle and as completely  armored as any cactus, it is far the most formidable. You cannot take hold of a teasel, anywhere, without being painfully stabbed. Even the  leaves have fine hairs that penetrate your skin as deeply as slivers of  glass. Teasel is a biennial. Now, in winter, tall dead stalks of it stand erect and  branched like a candelabra. They grew and bloomed last summer from  plants that were in their second year. On the ground among them are  green rosettes of large crinkled leaves. Those, and long taproots, were  developed by teasel plants during their first year. Like similar rosettes  of mullein and bull thistle, they stay green all winter and each will send  up a flower stalk in spring.

Today's photo is by WPC Volunteer Photographer John M. Karian, who does nature photography in Venango County.

Sources: Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois); and the North American Wildflowers, Reader's Digest, 1998.

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