346 UMBELLIFERAE (PARSNIP FAMILY) 



83. ARALIACEAE Vent. GINSENG FAMILY 



Herbs, shrubs, or trees, with alternate or verticillate rarely opposite leaves, 

 and perfect or polygamous, variously clustered flowers. Calyx-tube adnate to 

 the ovary, its limb truncate or toothed. Petals usually 5, valvate or slightly 

 imbricate, inserted on the margin of the calyx. Stamens as many as the petals 

 and alternate with them, rarely none, inserted on the epigynous disk; fila- 

 ments filiform or short; anthers introrse. Ovary inferior, 1 -several-celled ; 

 styles as many; ovules 1 in each cell. Fruit a berry or drupe. Seeds flattened 

 or somewhat 3-angled. 



Stem very prickly; flowers in racemosely disposed umbels .... 1. Fatsia. 

 Stem not prickly; flowers in one or more simple umbels . . . . .2. Aralia. 



1. FATSIA. Decaisne & Planch. 



Densely prickly shrubs with large palmately lobed leaves and greenish- 

 white flowers in dense paniculate umbels. Calyx-teeth obsolete. Petals 5, 

 valvate in the bud. Stamens 5, alternate with the petals; filaments filiform; 

 anthers ovate to oblong. Ovary 2-3-celled; styles 2, filiform; stigma termi- 

 nal. Fruit laterally compressed, drupaceous, the endocarp indurated. 



1. Fatsia horrida (Sm.) B. & H. Gen. 1: 939. 1867. Stem stout and woody, 

 1-3 m. long, creeping at base, leafy at the summit, and very prickly through- 

 out, making the forests in places almost impassable. Cascade and Coast 

 Ranges, from the Columbia northward, and extending into the Bitter-Root 

 Mountains. 



2. ARALIA L. WILD SARSAPARILLA 



Perennial herbs or shrubs. Leaves alternate, digitate or compound, with 

 serrate leaflets. Umbels mostly simple, solitary, racemed or panicled. Calyx 

 5-toothed or entire. Petals 5, ovate. Stamens 5. Disk depressed or rarely 

 conical. Ovary 2-5-celled; styles free or connate at base, at length divaricate. 

 Fruit laterally compressed, becoming 3-5-angled. 



1. Aralia nudicaulis L. Sp. PI. 274. 1753. Stem somewhat woody, short, 

 scarcely rising out of the ground, bearing a single long-stalked compound 

 leaf and a shorter naked scape with 2-7 umbels : leaflets oblong-ovate or oval, 

 serrate, 5 on each of the 3 divisions. In the Rocky Mountains, and from Can- 

 ada to the southern States. 



84. UMBELLIFERAE * B. Juss. PARSNIP FAMILY 



Herbs, commonly with hollow stems. Leaves mainly alternate, mostly 

 compound, often decompound, the petiole expanded or sheathing at base. 

 Flowers small, mostly in umbels (rarely in heads) ; umbels usually compound, 

 forming umbellets; the bracts under the general umbel form an involucre, 

 under an umbellet an involucel. Calyx- tube adnate to the 2-celled ovary, 

 its margin truncate or 5-toothed. Petals 5, inserted on the margin of the 

 calyx. Stamens 5, epigynous, on slender filaments with versatile anthers. 

 Ovary inferior; the two filiform styles often borne on a depressed or a conical 

 stylopodium; ovules 1 in each cavity, pendulous. Fruit either flattened 

 laterally (at right angles to the commissure), or dorsally (parallel to the 

 commissure), or nearly terete (not flattened). Carpels after parting from 



* Adapted from Coulter and Rose's Monograph of the Umbelliferae, Contrib. Nat. Herb. 

 7: 1900, and Supplement, 1. c. 12: 1909. 



