338 



tTMBELLIPERJS. (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 stylopodium. Meri- 

 car])s cohering by their inner face (the commissure or raphe)^ 

 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 ^vepriinary 

 ribs, and in the interstices or intervals between them often 

 by five secondary ribs; in the interstices are lodged the vittce 

 (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 umbellets / the whorl of 

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

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

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

 medicinal, and others acrid and narcotic, highly poisonous. 



Fig. 163. 



(a'\ Compound umbel of Coniummaculatura, in fruit, (ft) A portion of its mottled stem 

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

 (c) 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, 

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

 their tip are seen the two styles. 



