N. ORD.-UMBELLIFER&. 62 
GENUS.—ERYNGIUM,* TOURN. 
SEX. SYST,—PENTANDRIA DIGYNIA. 
ERYNGIUM. 
BUTTON SNAKEROOT. 
SYN.—ERYNGIUM YUCCASFOLIUM, MICHX.; E. AQUATICUM, LINN. (IN 
PART). 
COM. NAMES.—BUTTON SNAKEROOT, RATTLESNAKE MASTER, ERYNGO, 
CORN SNAKEROOT; (FR.) PANICANT D’EAU; (GER.) WASSERMANNS- 
TREU. 
A TINCTURE OF THE ROOT OF ERYNGIUM YUCCA:FOLIUM, MICHX.+ 
Description.—This peculiar, sedge-like perennial grows toa height of from 
1 to 6 feet. Svem smooth, erect, and grooved. Leaves linear, six inches to two 
feet long, and one-half to one inch wide, taper-pointed, coriaceous, rigid, parallel- 
veined, gramineous, and remotely bristly-fringed upon the margins. /nflorescence 
in a terminal compound umbel, each peduncle bearing a compact head; /eads 
broadly ovate ; dvacés entire, paleaceous, not spinous ; flowers inconspicuous, white, 
all fertile, closely sessile; /eaves of the involucels mostly entire, and shorter than 
the heads. Calyx 5-toothed; éeeth persistent. Petals connivent, oblong, emargi- 
nate. Styles filiform. /ruzt top-shaped, covered with little scales or tubercles, 
having no ribs and scarcely any vitte, the inner face of each mericarp flat or 
nearly so. 
4 
Umbelliferee.—This large and very natural order, of herbs, represented in 
North America by 50 genera and 187 species, is characterized as follows : Stems 
usually hollow and striate. Leaves alternate, mostly compound; Petio/es sheath- 
ing or expanding at the base. Inflorescence in terminal, compound umbels, often 
subtended by a whorl of bracts (cnvolucre), usually also subtending the umbellets 
(involucel); flowers small, in many genera dichogamous. Ca/yx adherent to the 
whole face of the ovary; “mb minute, entire or 5-toothed. e/als 5, usually 
e or valvate in zstivation. Stamens 5, alternate with 
inflexed at the point, imbricat 
the petals, and ‘nserted with them upon the disk. Ovary 2-carpelled, surmounted 
by the fleshy disk that bears the petals and stamens; ovules 2, anatropous; styles 
2, distinct, or united at their thickened bases; stigmas simple. /ruzt a cremocarp, 
consisting of 2 coherent achenia (mericarps) which separate along the middle 
interval (commissure), and are usually suspended from the summit of a slender 
* "Epvyetv, erygein, to belch, from carminative properties. os 
¢ A much better name than Z. aqguaticum, Linn., as the plant never Is truly aquatic with us, 
