SPECIES OF CICrTA. 3 



root, or the rhizome, whichever it may be, puts forth one or 

 more large buds which, before the parent stock is dead, have 

 formed roots of their owu, and are become independent plants. 



These offsets seem to require in many instances more than 

 one season for their full growth ; perhaps often two or more ; 

 but fructification is fatal to the plant in every case ; tlie offset 

 plantlets alone surviving. In a true perennial the aerial stem 

 alone dies after fruiting, not the rootstock nor the roots. 



The main roots of Cicuta usually fleshy-enlarged, are fasci- 

 cled at, or verticilled around the base of the root-axis when 

 such axis is sliort and erect, or they proceed from the nether 

 side of the rhizome, when the species are truly rhizomatous. 

 In addition to the main roots which are found in plants of all 

 ages, there is formed above them at flowering time a verticil 

 of quite different ones. These, proceeding from the aerial 

 stem at the point where it leaves the ground, subserve the 

 double purpose of giving a prop to the tall and heavy-laden 

 paniculate growth, and of drawing further nutriment from 

 the soil at the time when that stored in the fleshier roots, or 

 in the rhizome, as the case may be, is exhausted. I shall call 

 them accessor}' roots ; for they are necessarily taken into 



account in the diagnosis of the species. 



By the kind of characters now suflieiently indicated the 

 species, in so far as they are known, ai)pear susceptible of the 

 following grouping, and separate definition : 



* Root-axis very shorty nearly or quite ereef, not enlarged : 



its partitioyis erowded. 



Boots all (dike^ slender ^jibrons. 



1. C. viROSA, Linn. Sp. PI. 255 : Slum alterum, Dod. Pempt. 

 579 : Slum majus august if olium iv. Tabern. ed. 2, i. 193 : 

 Sium eruerr folio, C. Bauh. Pin. 154 : Slum aqnaiicum foliis 

 muUiJldis long is serratis, Moris. Hist ii. 283 : Cicuta aqua^ 

 tica Gesneri, J. Bauh. Hist. iii. 175 : Coriandrum cicuta, 

 Crantz, Stirp. Austr. 211 : Cicutaria virosa, Juss. Gen. 221 : 



