166 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
has earned for the family the name of Umbellifere, 
or the Umbel-bearers. Following the stalks of these 
umbels downwards, we find that a large number of 
them spring from a yet stouter, leafy stem, and as 
the flower-cluster thus consists of an umbel of umbels, 
it is described as a compound umbel. The majority 
of the plants in this family, as we know them in this 
country at least, have very beautiful leaves of the com- 
pound order: they are broken up into leaflets or lobes, 
and these again divided and deeply toothed, so that 
popularly they may be said to resemble fern-fronds. 
Most of them, however, are characterised by a soft, 
thin texture, which readily parts with its moisture 
and becomes flaccid. But we have still left to us 
species with much simpler leaves, and they probably 
exhibit to us some of the stages in the evolution of 
the highly compound leaf. 
After the flowers of Cow Parsnip have faded, 
each of the foot-stalks bears a couple of little shields, 
each poised on a slender bristle attached to 
its summit. These are the fruits, corre- 
sponding with the two cells of the ovary, 
and each contains a single flat seed. These 
fruitsare very characteristic of each species; 
in fact, they constitute the most import- 
Aer ant character for distinguishing between 
Cow Parsnip forms that resemble each other in foliage 
and flowers. They have normally five 
primary and four secondary ridges on their outer 
face, and between some of these ridges there are 
tubes pierced in the earpel-wall, and filled with 
the essential oil that gives a distinctive odour to the 
fruits of Anise, Carraway, Coriander, Cummin, Dill, 
