338 



UMBELLIFER^. (PARSLEY FAMILY.) 



polygamous-dioecious, or dioecious, regular, or with the outer 

 petals radiating, irregular. Calyx-limb obsolete, or merely 

 a 5-toothed border. Petals with tips mostly inflexed. Styles 

 arising from a conical base called the stylopodlum. Meri- 

 carps cohering by their inner face (the Gommissure or rajyhe)^ 

 when ripe separating from each other, and usually suspended 

 from the summit of a slender prolongation of the axis (the 

 carpophore)^ each carpel marked lengthwise by ^vQprimary 

 rihs, and in the interstices or intervals between them often 

 by five secondary rihs; in the interstices are lodged the vittCB 

 (oil tubes), which contain the aromatic oil of the plant. (They 

 are best seen in slices across the mericarp) — Stems common- 

 ly hollow. Leaves alternate, mostly compound, the petioles ex- 

 panding or sheathing at base. Umbels mostly compound, 

 the secondary ones being called iionbellets / the whorl of 

 bracts at the base of the umbels is called the involucre, and 

 that beneath the umbellets the involucel — A large and diffi- 

 cult family, some of the plants innocent and aromatic, others 

 medicinal, and others acrid and narcotic, highly poisonous. 



Fig. 163. 



i 



(a) Compound umbel of Conium maculatum, in fruit. (6) A portion of its mottled stem 

 and its 3-pinnatisect leaf, (c) An umbellet in flower, {d) A single flower, magnified 

 (e) A ripe fruit, showing the stylopodium, and styles, and ribs, (/) A transverse section 

 of the same, (g) A longitudinal section of mericarp showing the embryo in the albumen. 

 Qi) Fruit of an Osmorrhiza, showing the mericarps 1,2, separating from the carpophore. At 

 their tip are seen the two styles. 



