APIACE^ OR UMBELLIFERjE. 



rous entire or trifid. Flowers white or yellow, the central one 

 generally fleshy, dark purple, and sterile. 



116. D. gummifer Lam. diet. i. 634. Gussone prodr. i. 321. 

 jl. sicula t. 117. Nees and Eberm. handb. iii. 12. — Pastinaca 



tenuifolia gummi manans Boccon. mus. t. 20. — Dry stony hills 

 on the sea coast of Sicily. 



Hirsute. Leaves somewhat 3-pinnate rather shining ; leaflets ovate, 

 cut," acute. Bracts of both involucres broadish, with a membranous 

 margin, much shorter than the umbels. Prickles of the fruit hooked. 



— The roots yield the Bdellium siculum of the old Pharmacopoeias, 

 according to Boccone. It has a bitter balsamic taste and a weak but 

 unpleasant odour. 



N.B. De Candolle considers the plant thus called by Lamarck the 

 same as our British Daucus maritimus, and he reduces it as a synonym 

 to the D. hispanicus of Gouan. He then refers Boccone's Bdellium 

 carrot to D. Gingidium, the character of which here follows ; but 

 Gussone, the greatest of all authorities concerning Sicilian plants, 

 retains D. gummifer as a distinct species. 



117. D. Gingidium Linn. sp. plant. 348. D C. prodr. iv. 21 1 . 



— Rocky shores of Corsica. 



Stem and petioles rough with scattered bristles. Leaves bipinnate ; 

 segments cut, toothed, ovate ; lobes obtuse mucronate. Bracts of 

 involucre striated, pinnatifid, about as long as the umbel. Fruit ovate ; 

 prickles as long as broad, setiform, capitate with inflexed hooks. — See 

 last species. 



118. D. Carota Linn, sp. pi. 348. Eng. Bot. t. 1174. Nees 

 and Eberm. med.pl. t. 287. handb. iii. 10. DC. prodr. iv. 211. 

 S. and C. i. t. 56. Woodv. t. 161. — Common in high sandy soil 

 all through Europe, the Crimea, the Caucasus, China, and 

 Cochin-China ; also in America and elsewhere probably carried. 

 (Common carrot.) 



Root slender, yellowish, aromatic and sweetish, resembling the 

 Garden Carrot, which is only a cultivated variety. Stem 2 or 3 feet 

 high, branched, erect, leafy, hairy or bristly. Leaves alternate, on 

 broad, concave, ribbed footstalks, bipinnate, cut, narrow, acute, distantly 

 hairy. Umbels terminating the long leafless branches, solitary, large, 

 white, except the one central neutral flower, which is blood-red. Ge- 

 neral bracts pinnatifid, slender, large, but not so long as the umbel ; 

 partial undivided, or partly 3-cleft, membranous at the edges. Fruit 

 small, protected by the incurvation of all the flower-stalks, by which 

 the umbels are rendered hollow, like a bird's nest. Smith. Fruit 1-1^ 

 line long, pale dull brown, oval ; primary ridges filiform, bristly, 3 

 near the middle of the convex back, 2 on the plane of the commissure; 

 secondary ridges deeper and irregularly split into setaceous lobes. 

 Vittas one under each secondary ridge, and 2 on the plane of the 

 commissure. — A poultice for correcting the fetid discharge, allaying the 

 pain and changing the action of ill-conditioned, phagedenic, sloughing 

 and cancerous ulcers, is prepared from the root. Fruit carminative; 

 but supposed to act more particularly on the urinary organs. Pereira. 



54 



