UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 45 



its strong and peculiar odour, they will not touch it. In the early spring, 

 however, the scent is faint, and kine will sometimes eat it among the green 

 herbage of the pasture, and suffer much from doing so. In the moist 

 meadows of Sweden, where it is abundant, the horned cattle were subject 

 every spring to a sickness and mortality, of which the cause was long un- 

 known. Linnseus, with his usual sagacity, detected it, and recommended the 

 owners of these animals to keep them on the upland pastures during the 

 spring, bringing them, when the Cowbane was fully matured, into the low- 

 land meadows. The advice was taken, and a great annual loss to the grazier 

 thus prevented by the science and observation of the botanist. The flat- 

 topped umbels of minute white flowers appear in July and August. The 

 Spotted Cowbane of North America (C maculdta) is said to possess the 

 medicinal properties of Hemlock, and is used in that country for the same 

 purposes. The French call the Water-Hemlock, La Cicutaire ; the Germans, 

 Die Wutherick. It is termed in Holland Water Scheerling. 



5. Celery (Apium). 



Smallage, or Wild Celery (A. graveolens). — Stem furrowed and 

 branched ; leaves shining, pinnate or ternate, lower leaves on long stalks ; 

 flowers in terminal or axillary umbels. Plant biennial. Difficult of deter- 

 mination as plants of the Umbelliferous tribes usually are, the Wild Celery 

 is immediately recognised, whether in its fresh or dried state, by its strong 

 odour, so exactly resembling that of the well-known garden vegetable. It is 

 the origin of that useful edible plant, but when growing wild, is not only 

 acrid and disagreeable, but is believed to be, if near fresh waters, highly 

 deleterious. Climate and soil, however, often affect the wholesomeness of 

 plants, and Wild Celery is eaten in some countries. In the melancholy ad- 

 ventures of the missionaries, who with Captain Gardiner perished from want 

 at Tierra del Fuego, the generous men who risked their lives that the}^ 

 might carry the Truth to the natives were glad to feed on the Wild Celery 

 which they found, and which the surgeon who accompanied the expedition 

 did not seem to find unwholesome. Our Wild Celery grows commonly about 

 the ditches or rivers, or moist marshy lands, of England, especially near the 

 sea. The stem is usually one or two feet high, and the clusters of small 

 white flowers are in blossom from June to September. The umbels are often 

 sessile ; the glossy leaves are of bright green. 



The Garden Celery is rendered wholesome by blanching. This must be 

 done by shielding the plant from light. The office of the leaves of plants 

 is to expose the sap, which they derive from the stem, to the light and air, 

 and these enable them to develop their green colour. The necessity for light 

 and air in colouring plants is apparent from the circumstance that plants 

 turn towards the sun, seeking light, as well as from the fact, which every 

 observing person must have noticed, that leaves which grow in comparative 

 darkness are of paler green. It is thus that we see the green plant in some 

 crowded court of London looking paler than its compeer in the country 

 would do ; and thus, that when some stray branch of ivy finds its way into 

 the tower or belfry, and grows there, it is less green and glossy than the 

 verdant ivy which encircles the outer wall. Professor Lindley has explained 



