132 ODOROGEAPHIA. 



slightly arched, with five pale coloured, equal, filiform ridges, and 

 dark-brown channels between them, wdth one vitta in each 

 channel. A pair of vittce are also visible on the commisure. 



The Caraway plant appears to prefer a moist soil. It is possible 

 that it was originally an aquatic plant. George Henslow, in a paper 

 read before the Linnean Society, 17th November, 1892,* on " A 

 theoretical origin of Endogens from Exogens through Self- 

 Adaptation to an Aquatic Habit," states : — " Caruni Bulhocastanum 

 and carum carvA are not aquatic plants, but there are reasons for 

 thinking that these two species, as well as other umbelliferous 

 genera, characterised ]jy their having linear cotyledons and finely 

 dissected foliage, may have been so ancestrally. Such are, for 

 example, Cuminum Cyminum,Myrrliis odorata,Meum atha^nanticum, 

 Scandix Pecten- Veneris and Fennel ; as well as the linear-leaved or 

 phyllodinous Aciphylla squarrosa and species of Bupleurum. The 

 resemblance of the cotyledons to that of Ranunculus hetero])hyllus 

 is very marked ; while CEnanthe Phellandrium furnishes both 

 kinds of dissected foliage, the submerged and the aerial, and thus 

 shows how the above-named terrestrial plants may have been 

 aquatic at first." 



In England it is generally cultivated in clay soils, and the seed 

 was formerly sown with that of corianderf and teazle, but this 

 system of cultivation is not advantageous. The best season for 

 sowing the seeds is in Autumn, soon after they are ripe. They 

 will then flower the succeeding June and ripen seed in July. When 

 the seeds come up they must be thinned out in the same manner 

 as practised for carrots, leaving them three or four inches apart. 

 They then require to be kept very clean of weeds. After the 

 harvest the seeds are threshed out in the same way as those of 

 coriander. 



The yield of seed from very rich ground is about twenty 

 hundredweights to the acre. In poor dry land it may not exceed 

 half that quantity. Heavy rains during the flowering time cause 

 a great diminution in the yield of seed. 



The seed is known on the market as English, Dutch, German, 

 Mogodor, &c. ; the English being the most esteemed in England, 

 though not equal in delicacy of odour and flavour to the Dutch. 



* Journ. Lin. Soc. Bot. , xxix. p. 485. 



t Morton Cyclo. of Agriculture, i. p. 390. 



