154 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



umbels of white flowers with tlie exterior petals radiant, or 

 of greenish flowers, not radiant. 



This genua of plants was named in honour of Hercules, who is said to have 

 discovered it. 



SPECIES I.— HE RAGLE UM SPHOND YLIUM. Linn. 



Plate DCXIII. 

 B'lllot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2G77. 



Stem retrorsely hispid. Leaves pinnate, with 2 pairs of lobed 

 or angulated pinnae, and a terminal one which is generally 3-cleft. 

 Elowers radiant, the petals of the external ones wedgeshaped, cleft 

 into 2 often unequal strapshaped lobes. Cremocarp roundish- 

 obovate or oblong-obovate ; commissure with 2 vittae, reaching 

 scarcely halfway down. 



In hedges, open places, in woods, moist meadows &c. Very 

 common, and generally distributed. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Stem stout, erect, 18 inches to 6 feet high, hollow, angular, 

 furrowed, branched towards the apex. Leaf-segments very variable 

 in form and degree of incision, 1^ to 6 inches long. Umbels of 10 

 to 80 stout nearly straight rays, 1^ to 4 inches long ; pedicels f to -J 

 inch long. Involucre of few herbaceous caducous linear-lanceolate 

 ciliated leaves, sometimes absent ; involucels of numerous leaves. 

 Plowers large, the external radiant ones sometimes \ inch across, 

 white ; central flowers of the umbellules barren. Cremocarp pale 

 olive-brown, ^ to f inch long, very variable in shape, generally 

 increasing in breadth towards the apex, which is emarginate or 

 obcordate; mericarps with 5 filiform ridges, the 3 dorsal ones 

 approximate, the lateral ones distant ; wing narrow, forming a 

 border to the cremocarp ; vittoe superficial, very conspicuous, those 

 on the commissure and the lateral ones on the back of the meri- 

 carps thickened towards the apex, the inner dorsal ones sometimes 

 thickened, sometimes nearly linear. Plant dull-green, the leaves 

 paler below, rather thinly clothed with short stifP hairs. 



A very variable plant, out of which several species have been 

 made by continental botanists ; but I am satisfied that neither the 

 shape of the leaflets nor the fruit afibrds distinguishing characters, 

 and that in Britain we have but a single indivisible species. 



Common Cow-Varsnip. 



French, Bercp. Bntncursine. German, Gemeine Bdrenhlau. 



Thiff is one of our common wayside plants, which might really be usefully 

 employed, if our peasantry were better informed as to the nature and properties of the 



