UMBELLIFERiE. 99 



united witli the terminal one ; leaflets often 3 - cleft, sometimes 

 almost ternate, the segments cut, and rather bluntly serrate — the 

 second year, when the plant sends up its flowering-stem, the radical 

 leaves are smaller and soon decay. Stem 1 to 2 feet high, very 

 much branched, with ascending branches. Lower stem-leaves 

 stalked, pinnate, with about 2 pairs of pinnae like those of the 

 radical leaves ; the upper stem-leaves shortly stalked, ternate, with 

 slightly dilated sheathing bases to the petioles ; leaflets wedge- 

 shaped, cut at the apex. Umbels shortly stalked or subsessile, ter- 

 minal and opposite the leaves, rather irregular, the outer rays -J to 

 IJ inch long ; pedicels J inch long, or a little more. Involucre and 

 involucel none. Flowers 1-3 inch across, white tinged with green. 

 Petals roundish, subcordate and with a very short claw" at the base, 

 entire and incurved at the apex. Stamens scarcely longer than the 

 petals. Cremocarp ^-^ inch long and a little broader, dark-brown 

 when ripe, with the ribs paler, slender, and very prominent ; styles 

 rather short, recurved ; columella entire. Plant glabrous, slightly 

 shining, not glaucous. 



TFild Celery. 



French, Ache odorante. German, Gemeine Sellerie. 



In its wild state Celery is known in Britain by the name of Smallage. In its 

 native ditches it is rank and coarse, and is certainly unwholesome, although used by 

 some for flavouring broths and soups. When subjected to the cultivation of the 

 gardener, it loses all its deleteiious qualities, and becomes a palatable and wholesome 

 vegetable. For this transformation and for its name we are indebted to the Italians, 

 who introduced it first in its improved form in the seventeenth century, under the 

 name of sellari, the plural of sellaro, and corrupted from the Latin selinum, Greek 

 afXtiov. The great art of the gardener in the cultivation of Celery appears to be in 

 so excluding light from the stalks as to blanch them : this is done by earthing them 

 up as they grow with rich mould and manure, a process which probably accounts for 

 the absence of injurious properties in the cultivated Celery, as the active principles of 

 the leaves of plants are rarely developed when deprived of light. A variety of the 

 Celery with a large tuberous root, known by the name of Celeriac, is more grown 

 in Continental Europe than in Britain. It is lai'gely used in soups, in which slices of 

 the root are boiled, and give a pleasant flavoui'. With the Germans it is a common 

 salad, for which the roots are prepared by boiling until a foi'k will easily pass through 

 them : after they are boiled and become cold, they are eaten with oil and vinegar : 

 they are also served up at table with rich sauces. In all cases, before they are boiled, 

 the coat and fibres of the roots, which ai'e very strong, are cut away, and the root is 

 put in cold water on the fire, not in water previously boiling. Celery as it is used 

 in England, with large blanched leaf-stalks, sometimes attains a very large size in 

 richly-manured ground, especially in the North of England. A head grown near Man- 

 chester in 1815 weighed upwards of nine pounds. Celery is stimulating and diuretic, 

 and probably not very wholesome when taken in large quantities. We read of it in 

 the old herbals under the name of Smallage, and Gerarde tells us that it " hath a 

 peculiar vertue against the biting of venomous spiders." 



