166 GINSENG FAMILY. 



cut-serrate ; petioles with large inflated membranaceous base ; flowers greenish- 

 white ; fruit smooth and thin-winged. 



A. hirsilta. Dry ground, commoner S. : stem 2° - 5° high, rather slen- 

 der, downy at top, as are the umbels and broadly winged fruits ; leaflets thick- 

 ish, ovate-oblong, serrate ; flowers bright white. 



15. HERACLEUM, COW-PARSNIP. (Named after Hercules.) FI. 

 summer. 2/ 



H. lan^tum, Downy C, wrongly called Masterwort. Damp rich 



ground N. : very stout, 4° - 8° high, woolly-hairy when young, unpleasantly 

 strong-scented, with large cut and toothed or lobed leaflets, some of them heart- 

 shaped at base, and broad umbels Avith white flowers and large fruits. 



16. PASTINAC A, PARSNIP. (Latin name, from pas^us, food.) 



P. sativa, Common P. Run wild in low meadows, and then rather 

 poisonous, cult, from Eu. for the esculent strong-scented root : tall, smooth, 

 with grooved stem, coarse and cut-toothed or lobed leaflets, and umbels of small 

 yellow flowers. (|) 



55. ARALIACE^, GINSENG FAMILY. 



Like the foregoing family, but often shrubs or trees, usually more 

 than two styles and cells to the ovary and fruit, the latter a berry 

 or drupe. Besides a few choice and uncommon shrubby house- 

 plants, represented only by the two following genera. The flowers 

 in both are more or less polygamous, and the lobes or margin of 

 the calyx very short or none. Petals and stamens 5. 



1. ARALIA. Flowers in simple or panicled umbels, white or greenish: the petals 



lightly overlapping in the bud. Styles 2-5, separate to the base, except in 

 sterile flowers. Leaves compound or decompound. Root, bark, fruit, &c. 

 warm-aromatic or pungent. 



2. HEDERA. Flowers in panicled or clustered umbels, greenish : petals valvate 



in the bud. Ovary 5-ceIled: the 5 styles united into a conical column. 

 Leaves simple, palmately 3 - 5-lobed or angled. Woody stems climbing by 

 rootlets. 



1. AH ALIA. (Derivation obscure: said to be a Canadian name under 

 which a species was sent from Quebec to the Garden of Plants at Paris.) y. 



§ 1. Wild Sarsaparilla, &c. Flowers perfect or polygamous with both fertile 

 and sterile on the same plant : umbels more than one : fruit black or dark 

 purple, spicy : seeds or cells and styles 5. 



* Large and leafy-stemmed, ivith very compound leaves sometimes 2° or 3° ac7-oss, 



and luith many umbels in a large compound panicle : fl. in summer. 



A. spindsa, Angelica Tree, Hercules' Club. River-banks from 

 Penn. S., and planted : a shrub or low tree, of peculiar aspect, the simple stout 

 trunk rising 6° - 20° high and beset with prickles, bearing immense leaves with 

 ovate serrate leaflets, and corymbed or ])aniclcd umbels. 



A. racemdsa, Spikenard. Woodlands in rich soil, with herbaceous 

 stems 3° - .5° iiigh from a thick aromatic root, not prickly, widely spreading 

 branches, heart-ovate leaflets doubly serrate and slightly downy, and racemed- 

 panicled-unibcls. 



* « Smaller : short stems scarcely woody at base : few umbels : fl. early summer. 

 A. hispida. Bristly Sarsaparilla. Rocky places : bristly stems 1"- 



2° high, leafy below, naked and bearing corymbed umbels above ; leaves twice 

 pinnate, the leaflets oblong-ovate and cut-toothed. 



A. nudicaulis, Common Wild S. Low ground : the aromatic horizontal 

 slender loots running .3° - t)° long, used as a substitute for oflicinal Sarsaparilla ; 

 the smooth proper stem rising only 2' - 4' inches, bearing a single long-stalked 



