Class V. Order III. 115 



Very acute or mucronated. The veins end in the notches, and 

 not at the points of the serratures. The flowers grow in um- 

 bels of a middling size, without a general involucre. The par- 

 tial umbels are furnished with involucres of very short, narrow, 

 acute leafets. The distinctness or separation of these umbels 

 characterizes this plant at a distance among other plants of its 

 kind, whose umbels are more crowded. Calyx of five very 

 minute segments. Petals five, white, obovate, with inflected 

 points. Fruit nearly orbicular, compressed, ten furrowed, crown- 

 ed at top, and separating into two semicircular seeds. Common 

 in wet meadows. July, August. Perennial. 



This is probably the most dangerous of all our poisonous ve- 

 getables, and various instances of speedy death have taken place 

 in children who have unwarily eaten the root. See a particular 

 account in the American Medical Botany, volume 1. 



ClCUTA BULBIFERA. L. BuWlfeTOUS Clcuttt. 



Leaves decompound, linear ; branches bulbiferous. 



Stem about three feet high, round, hoilow, striated, green, 

 with a slight glaucous powder. Leaves thrice compound ; leafets 

 smooth, linear, with divergent teeth. Stipules membranous, 

 gradually lost in the petiole. Branches numerous, -covered with 

 small oval, acuminate, scaly bulbs, invested by the dilated base 

 of leafets, resembling bractes. These bulbs are in whorls when 

 young, but are afterwards scattered by the growth of the branch- 

 lets, which support them. Umbel small, terminal. General in- 

 volucre none, partial of short, acuminate leafets. Flowers white. 

 Petals small, ovate, acuminate with the point indexed. Frnit 

 suborbicular, compressed, striate. Ditches and ponds. July. 

 August. Annual. 



TR1GYN1JL. 



126. VIBURNUM. 



VIBURNUM LENTAGO. L. Sweet Viburnum. 



Leaves broad-ovate, acuminate, sharply serrate, 

 petioles margined, curled. Ait. 



A tall shrub in low grounds. Leaves very finely serrate, the 

 *erratures sharp, a little turned inward. Petioles with a mem- 



