A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1190 entries
teasel
Teasel is a tall prickly biennial of rough ground and roadside with a stiff spined stem and a conical flower head made of hundreds of tiny lilac flowers, which open in a band that starts around the middle and moves outward in both directions at once. The paired leaves join around the stem to form a cup that holds rainwater. The dead head stands through winter and is a favorite of goldfinches.
Etymology
The word is Old English and comes from the verb to tease, in its original sense of pulling apart or combing out fibers. Teasel heads were the standard tool for raising the nap on woolen cloth, and the cultivated species has hooked rather than straight bracts specifically for that purpose. So the word for a mild provocation began as a name for combing wool with a thistle.
Notes
No machine ever fully replaced them. Metal teasel substitutes tear the cloth where a natural head gives way and breaks first, so teasel frames were still in industrial use in fine woolen mills into the twentieth century and are used for some cloth now. The water held in the leaf cups drowns insects, and there is evidence that the plant takes some benefit from what decays in it.