

UMBELLIFERAE (PARSLEY FAMILY) 607 



UMBELLIFERAE (PARSLEY FAMILY) 



Herbs, with small flowers in umbels (or rarely heads), the calyx entire or 

 d-toothed, the tube wholly adhering to the 2-celled and 2-ovuled ovary, the 6 

 petals and 5 stamens inserted on the disk that crowns the ovary and surrounds the 

 base of the 2 styles. Fruit of 2 seed-like dry carpels (called mericarps) cohering 

 by their inner face (the commissure), when ripe separating from each other 

 and usually suspended from the summit of a slender prolongation of the axis 

 (carpophore) ; each carpel marked lengthwise with 5 primary ribs, and often 

 with 4 intermediate (secondary) ones ; in the interstices or intervals are com- 

 monly oil-tubes (vittae), longitudinal canals containing aromatic oil. (These are 

 best seen in slices made across the fruit.) Seed suspended from the summit of 

 the cell, anatropous. Stems usually hollow. Leaves alternate, mostly compound, 

 the petioles expanded or sheathing at base. Umbels usually compound, the 

 secondary ones being termed umbellets, the bracts which often subtend the 

 general umbel form the involucre, and those of the umbellets the involucels. 

 The frequently thickened base of the styles is called the stylopodium. A large 

 and difficult family, some of the species innocent and aromatic, others with 

 very poisonous properties. 



N. B. In this family the figures represent the mature fruit entire and in 

 cross section. 



I. Fruit with primary ribs only, hence 3 dorsal ones on each carpel (these 

 sometimes obscure or obsolete in the first group.) 



* Fruit ovoid, obovoid, or globose, not ribbed, scaly or densely covered with booked prickles. 



1. Eryngium. Flowers sessile In dense bracteate heads, white or blue. Leaves mostly rigid, 



more or less spinose. 



2. Sanicula. Flowers in irregular compound few-rayed umbels, yellow or green. Leaves 



palmate. 

 [Spermolepis may be sought here.] 



* * Fruit flattened laterally. 



i- Carpels also strongly flattened laterally. 



+* Seed straight, not sulcate - r umbels simple (often proliferous.) 



8. Hydrocotyle. Fruit suborbicular ; carpels with 8 dorsal ribs, not reticulated. Petals small, 



somewhat tubular. Low perennials in or near water. Leaves simple, roundish. 



4. Centella. Fruit orbicular ; carpels with 5 dorsal ribs, and somewhat reticulated. Petals flat. 



Leaves ovate. 



M- ++ Seed lunate, deeply sulcate on the face ; umbels compound, leafy-bracted. 



5. Erigenia. Fruit nearly orbicular, with numerous oil-tubes. Low, nearly acaulescent from a 



deep-seated tuber. Leaves ternately decompound. 



+- +- Carpels terete or slightly flattened laterally ; petals white (greenish-yellow in Petroselinum) 

 H- Seed-face concave ; frult.linear-oblong (rarely broader), with usually conical stylopodium. 



6. Chaerophyllum. Fruit glabrous, with small mostly solitary oil-tubes. 



7. Osmorhiza. Fruit bristly, the oil-tubes obsolete. 



*+ ** Seed-face concave ; fruit ovate ; leaves finely divided. 

 S. Spermolepis. Fruit warty or bristly, the ribs obsolete. Slender annuals. 



9. Conium. Fruit smooth, with conspicuous often undulate ribs. Ours biennial 



M- ++ ++ Seed-face flat. 



-= Leaves finely dissected ; oil-tubes solitary ; very slender annual* 

 10. Ptilimnium. Dorsal ribs filiform, the lateral very thick and corky. 



