Teasel Traditional Cache

Teasels can be both beautiful and prickly. You may want to consider wearing gloves for this one? I didn't and had no problems, but I wasn't searching. Another P & G.

Teasel

Teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris) is a biennial plant with a strong taproot and coarse, prickly stems. The rosettes that form during the first summer grow flat against the ground and remain green all winter.

Biology

Teasel is a biennial plant with a strong taproot and coarse, prickly stems. The rosettes that form during the first summer grow flat against the ground and remain green all winter. The following spring a stem emerges from the rosette, growing 3 to 6 feet (90 to 180 cm) tall and separating into several branches.

Rosette leaves are prominently veined and are very spiny, especially along the midribs. The leaves grow to one foot (30 cm) long and about 3 inches (7.5 cm) wide.

The upper leaves, those that grow along the stem in the second year, are opposite and sessile (attached directly to the main stem). The bases of each leaf on the lower part of the stem grow together, forming a neat cup that fills with water, sometimes ½ cup or more, during rain.

Recent investigations indicate that teasel may be a semi-carnivorous plant. When insects fall into the water held by the leaf-cups, they drown and their bodies decay. The leaves are then able to absorb the dissolved nutrients directly into the plant's vascular system.

All leaves are oblong and may be slightly indented near the base. Leaf margins are wavy, toothed, and occasionally prickly. The upper leaf surface bears green spines, each one about ¼ inch long and mounted on a cone-shaped bump. Spines also line the underside of the leaf midribs and continue down the entire stem.

In early summer, spiny green flower heads begin to form at the stem tips. At first oval, they elongate into cylinders 2 to 3 inches long and 1½ inches (3.8 cm) in diameter. Four or five thin, needle-like bracts grow from the base of each flower head and curve up around it for 2 or 3 inches.

The individual flowers on each flower head do not all open at once. Rather, blossoming begins near the middle of the cylinder and gradually spreads toward both ends until the whole flower head is a mass of tiny lavender blossoms. The tube-shaped flowers are only about ¼ inch long and are perfect (have both male and female parts).

4. Composite flower heads blossom in midsummer.

5. Bristly seedheads gave teasel its name.

Each flower is accompanied by a ½-inch-long, tapering flexible bristle, and each produces a single, hard, grey-brown or black seed. Seeds are 1/8 inch (3 to 4 mm) long, four-sided, and ridged along their length. A single flower head produces several hundred seeds—the only method by which teasel can reproduce. After the seeds mature in fall, frost kills the parent plant.

D. lacinatus, a species of teasel found in eastem New York state, has deeply lobed or ragged leaves rather than the broad, entire leaves of D. sylvestris. Other than a variation in leaf shape, the two plants are the same. Teasel is distinguished from true thistles by the cups that its united leaf bases form and by its unique bristly seed heads.

Teasel is an Old World plant, introduced to North America by the first European immigrants. It now grows as far north as Ontario, south into Tennessee, west to Utah, and along the Pacific Coast. It prefers damp, rich soils and is common in waste places, neglected pastures, and old fields, and along streams and roadside ditches.

A special variety called fullers' teasel (D.sativum) is cultivated in Europe for use in the textile industry. The spines on the flower heads of fullers' teasel have tiny hooks on the ends, as compared with the straight bristles of D. sylvestris. These hooks provide the perfect tool for raising the nap on newly woven woolen cloth. The dried heads are fastened to rollers which gently brush the material until its surface is soft and fluffy. Although some manufacturers now use plastic brushes, nothing surpasses the natural bristles of teasel, which are just stiff enough to fluff up the wool fibers without tearing them.

Teasel leaves or flower heads mixed with alum produce a yellow dye for cotton or wool. Many people collect the flower heads for a long-lasting and beautiful addition to dried flower arrangements.

The camoed pill bottle cache is a "micro". The kind you have to push hard to turn, both to open and close. It is tied in. It holds only a rolled log with rubber band to hold it tight and a tiny plastic zip lock bag. Please keep track of all the parts, so you can return it the way you found it. Your finger is a good place for the rubber band while you log. BYOP and no tweezers, please, they kill the plastic.