LMBELLATE PLANTS. 10 



and either flat, as in the Parsnip, or more or less con- 

 vex or protuberant, as in the Coriander and Parsley ; 

 when mature, it divides in the centre into two naked 

 seeds, which for a while, sometimes, remain suspended 

 to a hair like pedicle or receptacle. 



A superior corolla of five petals, scarcely any visi- 

 ble calyx, five stamens, and two styles upon a naked 

 fruit, at length spontaneously divisible into two dry 

 seeds, connected with a radiated inflorescence, form 

 the very natural character of the umbelliferous tribe. 



The Elder, from its peculiar mode ol inflorescence, 

 might perhaps be sometimes mistaken for an umbelli- 

 ferous plant, as well as some ol the species of Cornel, 

 particularly the red-twigged, but the flowers and 

 fruit are quite different, and the apparent umbel is 

 not so in reality, for though the general flower-stalks 

 come out from a common centre, the peduncles or 

 partial flower-stalks come out without any regular or- 

 der ; the whole, however, at a distance presenting a 

 round and flat cluster, has the appearance of an um- 

 bel, but is in reality what Botanists term a cyme. 



The umbelliferous order is somewhat numerous, 

 and so natural as to render it difficult to distinguish 

 the genera. Some authors have given an undue im- 

 portance to the presence or absence of certain small 

 leaves placed beneath the general and partial umbel, 

 the larger termed involucrum, and the lesser, or par- 

 tial, called involucellum. It may be true, that they 

 are pretty generally present or absent in certain gene- 

 ra, but as they are only equivalent to those minute or 

 peculiar leaves which we find under certain flowers, 

 and then called bractes, we ought to search for more 

 important characters, connected, if possible, in every 

 genus, with those essential organs, termed the parts of 

 fructification. But in these plants we find nothing, 

 commonly, peculiar in any part of the flower ; but in 



