686 Umbelliferae. 
the base, and usually without separate stipules. Flowers often poly- 
gamous, arranged in terminal or lateral, simple or compound umbels, 
which in some cases are reduced to capitula. Bracts and bracteoles 
usually present, forming respectively the involucres and involucels. 
A numerous family, more or less represented nearly all over the globe; 
but the species are comparatively few in high northern latitudes, as well as 
within the tropics, their great centre being western Asia and the Mediterranean 
region. Their inflorescence, and the structure of their flowers, distinguish 
them at once from all other families, except that of the Aralias, and these 
have either more than 2 styles, or the fruit is a berry. But the subdivision 
of Umbellifers into genera is much more difficult, Linnaeus marked out 
several which were natural, bat without definite characters to distinguish 
them; and the modern genera, founded upon a nice appreciation of minute 
differences in the fruit and seed, are often very artificial, or still more 
frequently reduced to single species, and as artificial as those of Cruciferae 
and Compositae. ‘These minute characters are moreover in many cases very 
diffieult to ascertain. I have, therefore, in the following analytical key, 
endeavoured to lead to the determination of the species, as far as possible, 
by more salient though less obsolute characters, which may suffice in a great 
measure for the few Egiptian species, although, even for them, the minute 
variations of the fruit cannot be wholly dispensed with. For this purpose 
it is essential to have the fruit quite ripe. Js must then be cut across, and 
if a horizontal slice is placed under a lens, the general form, the ribs and 
furrows of the pericarp, and the vittae, will clearly appear. When the fruit 
is described as laterally compressed, this slice is of an oval form, the division 
between the carpels being across the narrow diameter; where it is flattened 
from front to back, (dorsally) the division is acrous the broadest diameter. 
In some other genera, where the fruit is not compressed, the horizontal slice 
is orbicular. Where the albumen is furrowed, its transverse section assumes 
a more or less half-moon or kidney shape. 
A. Umbels simple. 
Saniculeae: Fruit terete or flattened laterally or 
dorsally. 
J. All the, flowers, sessile.... abs alisi is -osc< joey dieyneime 
II. All the flowers peduncled. ........ 2 Sanicula. 
b. Umbels compound. 
I. Primary ribs only prominent (except in Ammi- 
neae, Coriandrum). Vittae rarely wanting in 
the intervals. 
a) Fruit (except in few Smyrneae) flattened 
laterally. 
1. Smyrneae; Fruit nearly globular, broad- 
ovate, oblong-linear, or twin, rarely terete 
