38 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Feb. 



land becomes similar to the cultivated species at the end of some 

 generations; and inversely that the cultivated carrot returns to 

 the wild form, if planted in bad land, in the course of a few gen- 

 erations. 



The Celery [Apium graveolms, L.) — This plant is a hardy 

 biennial, indigenous to Great Britain and different parts of Eu- 

 rope ; it has even been found by Hooker in the southern hemis- 

 phere, and by Nuttall in California. Wild celery grows by the 

 side of ditches, near the sea, where the water is brackish. Radi- 

 cal leaves, on channelled petioles, green or purplish, stem leaves, 

 ternate, on short petioles, flowers in umbels, axillary, and greenish 

 white. The wild plant is rank, coarse, and suspicious in its ap- 

 pearance, but cultivation transforms it into one of the sweetest and 

 most wholesome of our esculents. 



Celery is grown in trenches, and as the plants grow their stems 

 are covered with earth ; the light is thus excluded, the stems are 

 blanched, or turn white, and are thus rendered edible. Celery ap- 

 pears to have been first cultivated in Italy, for the word itself is 

 of Italian origin, it having been formerly called Ache in England, 

 which is, in fact, its true English name. 



There are in the natural order Umbelliferge two active principles, 

 the narcotic and the aromatic ; the former develops itself when 

 these plants are found in moist grounds, and renders them poison- 

 ous ; the latter principle predominates when the Uinbelliferas 

 grow in dry ground. This may help to cause the difference be- 

 tween wild and cultivated celery, which always grows best in a rich, 

 well-drained soil. The process of blanching also doubtless assists 

 in rendering the poison peculiar to the wild plant inert, as the ac- 

 tive principles of the leaves of plants are rarely developed when 

 they are deprived of the light. 



The Parsley (Petroselinum sativum). — The parsley is so well 

 known, that a description of it is perfectly unnecessary. It is a 

 hardy biennial, a native of Sardinia, and was introduced into Eng- 

 land in 1548. It has naturalized itself in some parts of England 

 on old walls and rooks, usually near the sea. It was used by the 

 Romans as a pot-herb, and was also known to the Greeks. The 

 curled variety of parsley is most common in the gardens, and is the 

 safest to cultivate, as from the beautiful curl of its foliage it can- 

 not be mistaken for the poisonous fool's parsley (Ethusa cyna- 

 pium, L.). 



The Cabbage (Bmssica oleracea,Jj.) —This plant belongs to the 



