332 PENTANDRIA. 



observes, by the habit of a Thistle. Lagoecia is 

 justly referred to this natural order by the same 

 writer, though it has only a solitary seed and style. 



The Umbelliferce are mostly herbaceous ; the qual- 

 ities of such as grow on dry ground are aromatic, 

 while the aquatic species are among the most deadly 

 of poisons ; according to the remark of Linnaeus, 

 who detected the cause of a dreadful disorder among 

 horned cattle in Lapland, in their eating young leaves 

 of Cicuta virosciy Engl. Bot. t. 479, under water, 

 (127) 



Botanists in general shrink from the study of the 

 Umhdliferce^ nor have these plants much beauty in 

 the eyes of amateurs ; but they will repay the trouble 

 .of a careful observation. The late M. Cusson of 

 Montpellier bestowed more pains upon them than 

 any other botanist has ever done ; but the world has, 

 as yet, been favoured with only a part of his remarks. 

 His labours met with a most ungrateful check, in the 

 unkindness, and still more mortifying stupidity, of his 

 wife, who, on his absence from home, is recorded to 

 have destroyed his whole herbarium, scraping off the 

 dried specimens, for the sake of the paper on which 

 they were pasted ! 

 5. Trigijnia is illustrated by the Elder, the Sumach, or 

 Rhus, Viburnum, Uc, (128) also Corngiola, Engl. 



(127; [To this general rule there are exceptions. The pois- 

 onous Hemlock, Conium maculatuni, grows in dry ground, while 

 several species of Angclica,\\\\izh. are aromatic and harmless,inhab- 

 it watery places.] 



(128) [The S^nnach, Rhus ; Elder, Sambucus, and many simi- 

 lar shrubs with pithy stems and small flowers, constitute the Lm^ 

 nsean order i)«?«os«,] 



