129 



#iHgtual aivticUs. 



ON A NEW BRITISH UMBELLIFER. 



By F. Arnold Lees, F.L.S. 



(Tab. 229.) 



Selmum Carvifolia, L., is the latest Lincolnshire discovery of my 

 excellent friend the Rev. William Fowler of Liversedge Vicarage. 

 For several seasons he has devoted his summer pleasure-trip to the 

 investigation of the botany of his native county. After having 

 year by year added to its flora such interesting plants and new 

 county records as Barharea stricta, Cochlearia anglica, Stellaria 

 (jlauca, Hypericiun diibkun, Vicia sylvatica, Spircea Filipendiila , Dvp- 

 sacus pilosus, Melampi/nnn cristatuni, Galeopsis ochroleuca, EupJwrbia 

 amygdaloides, Potamogeton heteroplujllus and rufescens, Blysmus rii/us, 

 Carex Jiliformis, Melica nutans, Lastraa Thelypteris and Selagiriella 

 selaginoides, most of them somewhat, and a few of them notably, 

 extending their areas of distribution in Britain, it is to me pecu- 

 liarly gratifying that his labours in a neglected district should at 

 length have been rewarded by a discovery that in its botanical 

 significance surpasses, whilst to some extent it also corroborates, the 

 indications furnished by all the rest. The new Umbellifer in 

 question was found growing, with Silaus, in July, 1880, and in July 

 and September, 1881, on a wet bank by a pool near the south- 

 eastern border of the extensive Broughton Woods, upon the eastern 

 fringe of the Oolite stratum, some of the woodland being aboriginal, 

 but most of it planted. When hardly in flower it was first gathered 

 as Peucedcmum palustre. The 1880 specimens were sent so labelled 

 (without any doubt expressed or felt), for the General Locality 

 Lists of the Bot. Record Club. Mr. Fowler having previously sent 

 the true Milk Parsley from Laughton and fi-om Sandtoft in the 

 same division of the county, forwarded the Broughton Wood plant 

 merely as from a somewhat unusual station. As having a bearing 

 upon the question of mimicry, it should be noted that here we 

 have a botanist, an old hand in the field, and familiar enough 

 surely with the true Peucedaniim palustre, for he had twice and 

 recently gathered it, after having long looked out for it, gathering 

 Selinum for Peucedanum — an error which, if there were no strong 

 superficial resemblance, would argue at the least a not incon- 

 siderable degree of critical obtuseness. 



Although in general aspect Selinum Carvifolia so closely mimics 

 Peucedanum palustre as to have been (according to Reichenbach) 

 long confused with it on the Continent, it comes under a difi'ereut 

 tribe, that of AngelicecB, with a fruit lens-like in section, made up 



N. s. VOL. 11. [May, 1882.] s 



