Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson CXLVII · Topic 22: Weeds and wayside plants
147. The teasel
Goal: Your child shows how the teasel is armored all over and finds where on its head the flowers bloomed first.
You'll need
- Nature notebook, pencil and colored pencils
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- Thick garden gloves
- A ruler
What's in the book
A Teacher's Story about the teasel, with a photograph of its winter rosette, and the lesson: Leading thought, Method and nine questions.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Teasel grows in pastures, roadsides and waste places. Comstock suggests bringing in a plant in September that shows all stages of blossoming. The dry, spiny heads stand all winter. Use thick gloves: it is prickly everywhere.
The leading thought
The teasel is a plant in armor, so protected that it can flourish and raise its seeds in pastures where cattle graze. It has a peculiar method of beginning to blossom in the middle of the flower-head and then blossoming upward and downward from this point.
Armor
Where does the teasel grow? Is it ever eaten by cattle? Why not? How is it protected?
Where upon it are the spines situated? Are the spines all of the same size?
Leaves in pairs
Are the leaves set opposite or alternate? If one pair points east and west in which direction will the pairs above and below point?
Look where each pair of leaves joins the stem. On many teasels they form a little cup that holds rainwater.
The flower-head
How many girdles of flowers are there around the flower-head?
Where did the first flowers blossom in the teasel flower-head? Where on the head will the last blossoms appear?
If you're too late for blooms, look at an old head: the seeds ripened first in the middle band.
Seeds and history
Later in the season take a teasel head and describe how it scatters its seed.
For what were teasels once used?
Nature notebook
Draw a teasel head with its long curving prongs underneath, and show with color where the flowers bloomed first.
Answers to the book's problems
Comstock's Teacher's Story: the spines of one kind of teasel were once used to raise the nap on woolen cloth, and the plant was grown for that. Teasels are biennial: a rosette of crinkled, spiny leaves the first season, the flower stalk the second.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.