WILD PARSNIP 



Hercules used it as medicine. At any rate the name 

 fits admirably an herbaceous plant which rises strong 

 and stately to a height of eight feet and bears at its 

 summit a flat flower cluster ten to fourteen inches 

 across. This creature, appearing with almost tropical 

 luxuriance in colonies by the roadside when the way 

 traverses low, moist ground, is worthy of respectful 

 attention. Its size demands it. 



The flower cluster upon examination is seen to be 

 an umbel of umbels, each individual flower five- 

 petaled, the outer blossoms larger than the inner, 

 after the fashion of the Umbelltfercp. 



The roots are large, their juices acrid, though it 

 is said the Canadian Indians roasted and ate them. 



By midsummer the beauty has departed from the 

 plant, for the white flower umbel has been replaced 

 by a brown fruit umbel but its power is not gone nor 

 its strength abated. With the great umbel now 

 carrying from twenty to thirty small umbels and each 

 of these carrying from twenty-five to thirty double 

 seeds, the seed production of a single plant runs into 

 thousands. The seeds are plump for their type and 

 evidently have food value for the flocks of the wild. 



WILD PARSNIP 



Pastindca saliva 



Pastinaca, from Latin pastus, food. 



Biennial, rarely annual. Naturahzed from Europe. A 

 familiar weed on roadsides and borders of fields, reach- 

 ing the height of two to five feet and bearing many 

 flat umbels of greenish yellow flowers. Throughout the 

 United States and Canada. June-August. 



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