UMBELUFERjE. ( PARSLEY FAMILY.) 209 



28. LEPTOCAULIS, Kutt. 



Calyx-teeth obsolete. Fruit very small, ovate, usually bristly or tuberculate, 

 with somewhat prominent ribs , oil-tubes solitary in the intervals ; stylopodium 

 conical; seed-face plane or somewhat concave. Very slender smooth branch- 

 ing annuals, with finely dissected leaves (segments filiform or linear), and 

 small white flowers in very unequally few-rayed pedunculate umbels (Name 

 from \eirrJs, slender, and /fou\6s, a stem.) 



1. L. divaricatus, DC. Plant 1-2 high, with branches and umbels 

 diffusely spreading, the very slender rays |-1' long and the longer pedicels 

 often 3-6" long; fruit tuberculate, \" long. (Apium divaricatum, Benth. $- 

 Hook.) N. C. to Fla., west to Ark. and Tex. ; reported from Kan. April. 



2. L. patens, Nutt. Of similar habit, but the umbels shorter and more 

 strict, the rays 3-6" long or less and the pedicels short; fruit densely sharp- 

 tuberculate or nearly smooth. (Apiastrum patens, Coult. fr Rose.) Central 

 Neb. to Tex. and N. Mex. 



29. DISCO PLEURA, DC. MOCK BISHOP-WEED. 



Calyx-teeth small or obsolete. Fruit ovate, glabrous ; carpel with dorsal 

 ribs filiform to broad and obtuse, the lateral very thick and corky, those of 

 the two carpels closely contiguous and forming a dilated obtuse or acute corky 

 band ; oil-tubes solitary , stylopodium conical , seed nearly terete. Smooth 

 branching annuals, with finely dissected leaves, involucre of foliaceous bracts, 

 involucels of prominent or minute bractlets, and white flowers. (Name from 

 Slfficos, a disk, and ir\tvp6v, a rib.) 



1 . D. capillacea, DC. Plant 1 - 2 high (or even 5 - 6) ; leaves dissected 

 into filiform divisions; umbel 5-20-rayed; involucre of filiform bracts usually 

 cleft or parted, and involucels more or less prominent ; fruit 1 - 1 \" long, ovate, 

 acute. Wet ground, Mass, to Fla., west to 111., Mo., and Tex. June - Oct. 



2. D. Nuttallii, DC. Similar in habit; involucral bracts short and en- 

 tire ; fruit very small (" long), as broad as high, blunt. 111. (?) to Ark., La., 

 and Tex. 



30. CONIUM, L. POISON HEMLOCK 



Calyx-teeth obsolete. Fruit ovate, somewhat flattened at the sides, gla- 

 brous, with prominent wavy ribs ; oil-tubes none, but a layer of secreting cells 

 next the seed, whose face is deeply and narrowly concave. Poisonous bien- 

 nial, with spotted stems, large decompound leaves with lanceolate pinnatifid 

 leaflets, involucre and involucels of narrow bracts, and white flowers. (K.tai>tiov, 

 the Greek name of the Hemlock, by which criminals and philosophers were 

 put to death at Athens.) 



C. MACULATUM, L. A large branching European herb, in waste places, 

 N. Eng. to Perm., and west to Iowa and Minn. 



31. CH-ZEROPHYLLUM, L 



Calyx-teeth obsolete. Fruit narrowly oblong to linear, notched at base, with 

 short beak or none, and equal ribs; oil-tubes solitary in the intervals; seed-face 

 more or less deeply grooved. Moist ground annuals, with temately decom- 

 pound leaves, piunatifid leaflets with oblong obtuse lobes, mostly no involucre, 



14 



