Umbellales.] APIACEiE. 775 



blance of Umbcllifers to Crancsbills is however very feol)lo. Eiullicher compares them, 

 and justly, to Cornels ; in fact, the little Cornus suocica, and the whole fjenus Iknitha- 

 mia, have exactly the involucre and inflorescence of Umljellifers, iu addition to their 

 other points of resemblance. 



The arrangement of this Order has only within a few years arrived at any verv 

 definite state, the characters upon which genera and tribes could be fomied havin*" 

 been for a long while unsettled ; it is, however, now generally admitted that the number 

 and development of the ribs of the fruit, the presence or absence of reservoirs of oil 

 called vitt£e, and the form of the albumen, are the leading pecuharities which requu-e 

 to be attended to. Upon this subject see Koch's Dissertation, Lagasca in the Otiosas 

 Espaiiolas, and De Candolle's Memoire, especially the last. The classification of De 

 Candolle has, however, been criticised by Tausch, in the places above quoted, who 

 asserts that the albumen is a fallacious guide. He says that some species of Bupleui*um 

 are campylosperaious, and others orthospermous, and that the same is true of many 

 other genera. He adds, that in Hasselquistia the fruit of the ray is orthospermous, 

 while that of the disk is ccelospermous. The arrangement which this author proposes 

 to substitute has not yet been examined critically. It must, however, be obvious to 

 every experienced Botanist that the genera and tribes are alike unsatisfactory, and 

 that the arrangement of Umbellifers upon sound principles still remains to be acliieved. 

 Natives chiefly of the northern parts of the northern hemisphere, mhabitiug groves, 

 thickets, plains, marshes, and waste places. They appear to be extremely rare iu all 

 tropical countries, except at considerable elevations, where they gradually increase in 

 number as the other parts of the vegetation acquire an extra-tropical, or mountain cha- 

 racter. Hence, although they are hardly known in the plains of India, they aboimd on 

 the mountains of the Himalaya. They are, however, not uncommon in the southern 

 hemisphere, where they belong principally to HydrocotyUds and MuUnids. 



The UmbeUiferous is one of those large Orders in which plants occur with extremely 

 different secretions. They all appear to form tlu'ee different principles : the first a 



watery acrid matter, the second 

 agum-resmous milky substance, 

 and the thu-d an aromatic oily 

 secretion. When the first of 

 these predommates they are poi- 

 sons ; the second in excess con 

 verts them into stimulants ; the 

 absence of the two renders them 

 useful as esculents ; the third 

 causes them to be carminatives 

 and pleasant condiments. A 

 vast number of species are re- 

 ferred by ^\Titers to one or other 

 of these categories. Without 

 pretendhig to go mto any de- 

 tailed enumeration of the quali- 

 ties, real or asserted, of the end- 

 less species at one time or other 

 used by man, (for which the 

 reader must consult Endlichcr's 

 Enchiridion, Geiger's lland- 

 buch, the works of Nees v. Esen- 

 beck and Ebermaier, and 



Fig. DXIV. 



Fig. DXIV.— Archangelica officinalis. 



