Panicaut De Mer

Eryngium maritimum L. Sp. PI. 233. 1753
Stout and more or less fleshy, glabrous and glaucous or bluish-tinged, perennials, 2-6 dm. high, from a woody base, the stems prostrate to erect, leafy; basal leaves suborbicular-reniform, 5-15 cm. in diameter, simple or palmately incised, coarsely spinose-dentate or spinose-serrate, the venation reticulate; petioles stout, sheathing at the base, naked or spinulose-winged, 5-15 cm. long; cauline leaves similar to the basal, sessile and clasping, and sometimes narrower, rhomboidal or cuneate above; inflorescence cymosely branched, the heads large, pedunculate, the flowers numerous; heads amethystine, ovoid or subglobose, 1-3 cm. long, 1.5-2.5 cm. broad; bracts lanceolate to ovate, 2-3 cm. long, 0.5-2 cm. broad, rounded or cuneate at the base, 3-5-dentate at the apex with broad triangular spinose teeth, usually exceeding the heads; bractlets linear, 1.5 cm. long, tricuspidate, about equaling the fruit; coma wanting; sepals ovatelanceolate, 5 mm. long, the very stout midrib projecting as a pungent tip; petals oblong, 4-5 mm. long; styles about equaling the sepals; fruit ovoid, S— 15 mm. long, 6-8 mm. broad, slightly compressed laterally and densely covered with subquadrate or narrower scales, the lateral 1-2 mm. long, the dorsal smaller to obsolete.
Type locality: "Ad Europae littorae arenosa maritima," collector unknown. Distribution: Adventive at Ellis Island, New York.