Apium. PENTANDRIA DIGYNIA. 97 



APIUM. Schreb. gen. n. 499. 



Involucre one or more leaved. Petals equal. Flow' 

 ers all fertile. Fruit small, gibbous, ribbed. Style de- 

 flexed. :•;. ., ...^ , , t^ Aj< 



-^ Annual, glaucous, villous, superior leaflets filiform both -^A^E^ 

 general and partial about six-leaved, ^'^*^'^kUsm 



Betig. Chanoo, also Radliooni- '^'*' /'A'> 



Hind. Ujmood, Ujmud. ^ 



I have only met with this plant in its cultivated state « 



and it is often raised in our Gardens in India as a sub- 

 stitute for parsley, A.petroselinum. It is cultivated over 

 many parts of Bengal during the cold season, for the seed 

 only, which the natives use in diet, and medicine ; the 

 leaves they make no use of. 



Root annual, white, penetrating deeply into the soil. 

 Stem erect, flexuous, glaucous, slightly villous. Branches 

 numerous, and like the stem ; height of the whole plant 

 about three feet, ieaves alternate, petioled, decompound 

 by ternary. Leaflets, of the lower leaves broad, variously 

 and deeply cut ; of the superior ones narrower, ever to li- 

 near, and often simple. Umbel, universal, generally of 

 about six spreading rays ; in luxuriant plants these are 

 sometinles proliferous ; partial, of from twelve to twenty. 

 Involucre and Involucels of about six villous subulate 

 leaflets. The first shorter than the rays ; the latter of 

 nearly the same length. Flowers numerous, all fertile, 

 white. Perianth scarcely any. Petals ovate, with a long, 

 taper, inflected apex. Seed small, ovate, villous, gib- 

 bous, and three-ribbed on the back. 



M 



