134 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



base, flowers very small in umbels, generally compound, and 

 with numerous bracts, calyx adnate to the ovary, petals 5, 

 often unequal, inserted round a fleshy disk, stamens 5 epigy- 

 nous ; styles *2, fruit of 2 carpels, united until ripe, generally 

 ridged and furrowed. 



This large but very plain family is very well known in England, 

 but has few representatives in W. India, and those few not common. 

 It is one of the most natural orders, the umbellate arrangement of 

 small white or yellow flowers, and the apparently 2-lobed dry fruit 

 being very characteristic. But it is often very difficult to distin- 

 guish the genera and species, so that Kousseau compared the plant a 

 of this order to a number of relations, with so great a family likeness 

 that outsiders could be sure of the close relationship without being 

 able to distinguish individuals. 



Note. The outer flowers of the umbels are generally more irregular 

 than the others, the outer petals being the largest. 



The cultivated species are far better known than any of the 

 native Indian ones ; and any one can get a good idea of the 

 peculiarities of the order by carefully comparing the flowers 

 and fruit of two or three of the species here given, viz. : 



Apium petroselinum parsley. 



A. graveolens celery, Karfas, bori ajmod. 



Fceniculum vulgare, fennel, barishoph, warydli. 



Pastinaea sativa parsnep. 



Daucus carota carrot ganjar. 



Coriandrum sativum, coriander dhangd, Kothmir. 



Peucedanum graveolens dill sowd. 



Cuminum cyminum cummin jira . 



Note. Out of 13 native species attributed by IT. to this Presidency, 

 8 are given on the authority of Dalzell, Stocks and Law alone, and 

 apparently not known otherwise. 



Note. The first of the genera here given is by no means a typical 

 TJmbellifer, the umbels being not very pronounced ; the flowers, in 

 the species here given, dark, and the leaves simple. 



1. HYDROOOTYLE. Prostrate herbs, rooting at the nodes, 

 leaves entire, umbels simple, small, fruit laterally compressed, 

 the achenes flat, nearly round. 



2. CARUM. Petals retuse or emarginate, fruit laterally com- 

 pressed, ovate or oblong. 



3. PIMPINELLA. Impossible to give any constant and appre- 

 ciable distinctions from the last. 



4. PEUCEDANUM. Fruit much dorsally compressed, achenes 

 winged on the margin. 



