Spiny and magnificent, a mature Scotch thistle (Onopordon acanthium) thrusts its single open purple bloom skyward above a bristling candelabra of armoured buds — a botanical portrait so sharply resolved you can almost feel the prickle through the card stock. Rommler & Jonas of Dresden applied their Naturfarben-Phot colour process to produce this card 107 in their Ser. "Flora II" sequence, capturing the thistle's steely grey-green stems and vivid magenta flower head with remarkable fidelity for the era. The thistle carries layered symbolism: national emblem of Scotland, medieval symbol of tenacity, and — to Edwardian natural-history enthusiasts across Germany and Austria — simply a dramatic and photogenic subject worthy of a collector's album.