ON A NEW BRITISH UMBELLIFER. 131 



lenticular in section, about three -sixteenths of an inch in length by 

 two-sixteenths in width, dull brownish green when ripe ; each 

 carpel when disarticulated seen to be slightly curved in the direction 

 of its greatest diameter (most apparent when dry), the concavity 

 towards the inner face, with its lateral wings bent back and con- 

 tiguous to those of its fellow at base and summit only, ^Droducing 

 the narrowly-elliptic gap between the double wing when viewed 

 from the side. Seed when ripe showing through the pericarpal 

 membrane on the commissural face as a blackish ellipse. Chewed 

 when dry the fruit has a peculiar rank pungent taste, scarcely 

 aromatic, but" rather between that of juniper and pennyroyal. 

 Habitats (on the Continent) : moist shady thickets, damp grassy 

 places on the borders of woods, and also in open marshy meadows. 

 Perennial. Flowering in Lincolnshire from mid-July to mid- 

 August, ripening its fruit early in September. 



Upon the plate in Eeichenbach's 'Icones' a monstrous tetrapterous 

 mericarp is figured, the central dorsal wing being abortive, and a 

 few examples of this occurred amongst the gatherings made by 

 Mr. Fowler in September, 1881. 



The European Distribution of Selinum Carvifolia is wide, with 

 decided northern and north-western tendencies, thus in no way 

 combatting the probability of its being indigenous in eastern 

 England. Nyman, in ' Conspectus Florae Europeae, '(p. 283), gives 

 its range as follows : — Southern Norway (rare), middle and south 

 Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Finland (south-west), Ger- 

 many, the greater part of France (rare in the centre and south) 

 inclusive of Dauphiny, Switzerland, North Italy, Poland, Austria 

 (Hungary, Banatia, Transylvania), Sclavonia, Croatia, Montenegro, 

 Servia, and mid to south Eussia : indicated also in Arragon, but 

 Lange's Spanish plant not known to Nyman. 



From the foregoing description of S. Carvifolia it may seem to 

 some that the assertion of a protective likeness to Peucedanum 

 palustre is hardly warranted ; and looking to the obvious and per- 

 sistent involucre in which the Milk Parsley "rejoices" as Eeichen- 

 bach* quaintly puts it, one wonders how the two ever came to be 

 confused in the field. The fringe of diaphanous laciniae should be 

 a very insufficient source of blunder ; and yet the coincidence of 

 the discovery in England exemplifying the very risk of error Eeich- 

 enbach alludes to is a circumstance too curious to be passed without 

 notice ; and in the identity of cii'cumstance favouring the mistake, 

 an identity very unlikely to be aught save natural, and which could 

 scarcely be intended even on a theory that the plant was wilfully 

 introduced, we may discern a fragment of collateral evidence in 

 support of the indigenity of the Selinum. I am aware the un- 

 qualified admittance as " a native " into our British lists of a new 

 plant — especially one not a mere critical *' split" off some known 

 species, but a member of a genus hitherto unknown in Britain — is, 

 and should be, a matter calling for great caution ; and, mindful of 



* He remarks (Icones, vol, xxi., p. 6:3;, under Thysselinum palustre, "Nunc 

 cum Selino Carvifolia confusum. Cf. supra." having previously, under S. Carvi- 

 folia, said (p. 51), "Nunc commutator cum Peucedano palustri, quod minus 

 videtur necessarium, cum hoc gaudeat involucro generali. 



