UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE 71 



31. Bladder-seed {Phijsos'pennum). 



Cornish Bladder-seed (P. cormibwnse). — Root-leaves thrice ternate ; 

 leaflets wedge-shaped, cut, or deeply three-lobed, with acute segments ; stem- 

 leaves ternate, few, the segments long and narrow. Plant perennial. This 

 rare plant is found in Cornwall and on the borders of the neighbouring county 

 of Devonshire. It has a stem a foot and a half high, and bears its terminal 

 umbel of white flowers in July and August. The coat of the carpel is so 

 loose that the seed may be shaken about in it. 



32. Alexanders (Smyrnium). 



Common Alexanders (*S'. olusdtrum). — Stem round; stem-leaves ter- 

 nate, stalked, serrate. Root biennial. The word olusatrum — deiived from 

 olus, pot-herb, and afrum, black, must refer rather to the colour of the ripened 

 fruit than to the foliage or stems of this plant. It is truly remarkable for its 

 bright, glossy, green foliage, and during February the young sprays of leaflets 

 give the hedge-bank a degree of rich verdure afforded at that season by no 

 other plant. The Alexanders grows on waste places, among ruins, but most 

 especially near salt rivers or the sea ; often abounding in great quantity on 

 the sea clifl's, as it does on those of Dover, and looking in early spring the 

 brightest thing there, save the clumps of yellow wallflowers. By April the 

 dense rounded clusters of greenish-yellow flowers are very numerous, and the 

 broad membranous bases of the leaf-stalks are swollen out into very con- 

 spicuous sheaths. A month later, and the dark aromatic fruits succeed the 

 flowers, and by September the pale withered stalks seem the skeletons of the 

 departed plant. Many persons think the odour of this herb agreeable, and 

 that it resembles that of celery ; and although we may not agree with them, 

 yet it is quite certain that the flavour of the Alexanders was liked, and the 

 plant cultivated by our forefathers. Parkinson, in describing the " ordering 

 of the kitchen-garden " in his time (1629), says : " Alisanders are to be sowne 

 of soede, the tops of the rootes with the greene leaves are used in Lent espe- 

 cially " ; and the plant was eaten, both boiled and as a salad, before the use of 

 celery had become general. The Italians introduced the culture of the latter 

 vegetable in the seventeenth century ; and after that time, not only the 

 Alexanders, but several other herbs then in common culture became less" 

 used. It was the young shoots principally which were dressed for the tables 

 of the olden times, and these, quite early in the spring, have an odour not 

 altogether unpleasant, reminding us a little of what Pliny said of the 

 plant — that it had the flavour of myrrh. The modern taste for vegetables 

 may be said to be more cultivated than that of earlier days, when the kitchen- 

 garden was scantily supplied. What Parkinson says of the habits of people 

 in his time, with regard to vegetables, was doubtless true to an even greater 

 extent two or three centuries sooner. In treating of " the manner of order- 

 ing of many sortes of herbes and rootes for sallets," he says, "if I should set 

 downe all the sortes of herbes that are usually gathered for sallets, I should not 

 onely speake of garden herbes, but of many herbes which grow wilde in the 

 fields, or else be but w cedes in a garden ; for the usuall manner with manie 

 is to take the yong buds and leaves of everything, almost, that groweth, as 



