1 68 The Angelica. 



how many moisture-loving plants of the plain take up 

 their abode. Comparing small things with great, we 

 are reminded of those portions of the great mountain- 

 ranges of India and South America, where tropical vege- 

 tation, climbing a little way up, comes in contact with 

 temperate-zone forms. Every country, if we look at 

 it aright, is a miniature of the world ; and no phenomena 

 whatever, saving active volcanoes and icebergs, are with- 

 out illustration, in little, in our own island, which is 

 a compend and summary of nature, and provides the 

 first steps to all knowledge. Among these plants may 

 often be noticed the Angelica, one of the great tribe 

 named after the parsley of the garden, and the finest 

 illustration in our country of the normal structure. No 

 plants are better known than the members of the Parsley 

 family. They constitute some of the commonest hedge- 

 row-weeds of early summer, and again in autumn, and 

 are generally lumped together as " hemlock." The 

 true hemlock is itself an admirable expositor of the 

 race ; but near Manchester it does not occur, or we 

 should be able to note the glossy smoothness of the 

 stem, and the abundant reddish spots thereon, by the 

 combination of which characters it is at once distin- 

 guished from its congeners. The Angelica has great 

 hemispherical umbels of lilac-tinted flowers, and very 

 large leaves, at the base of every one of which is the 

 characteristic pouch represented in fig. 25. 



Taking the specially interesting spots in somewhat of 



