GOLDEN-ALEXANDERS (Early Meadow Parsnip) 



Zizia aurea (L.) Koch 



May - June 

 Roadsides, thin woods 



Once upon a time there was a German botanist 

 who lived along the Rhine. His name was Pro- 

 fessor Ziz, and a good while later a certain 

 member of the parsley family, far off in America, was named Zizia in 

 his honor. Botanists whose names in most other ways have been forgotten 

 thus have been perpetuated by means of their plant namesakes. Fre- 

 quently they are plants which the defunct botanists never saw and with 

 which they had not the remotest connection. 



It is possible, though, that in the sunny meadows along the Eliine 

 there were yellow flowers which bloomed in late May and marked an 

 end to early spring flowers and introduced summer to the land. For the 

 early meadow parsnip, or golden-alexanders, is among the earliest of 

 the parsnips to bloom. As if in deference to the youngness and grace of 

 the season, golden-alexanders is not large and coarse as so many of its 

 family are. It is a pleasant briglit green plant of medium growth — two 

 feet or a little more — with spreading branches and smooth stems and 

 leaves. The leaves are irregularly shaped; some of the leaflets are lobed, 

 some are entire ; all are very finely saw-toothed and bright green. 



In May — there in the sunny woods or in the moist meadows — the 

 early meadow parsnip holds erect its graceful umbels of bright golden, 

 tiny flowers. The separate heads of the flowei's in the umber spread on 

 thin stems; the whole umbel is a l)ou(|uei. 



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