96 SUMMER FLOWERS. 



flores. One of them, called the Hemlock Dropwort,"^ a tall per- 

 ennial herb, gro^Ying commonly in wet ditches and by the sides 

 of streams, is a virulent poison. Its root-fibres form thickish 

 elongated tubers close to the stock ; its stems are branched and 

 grow four or five feet high ; its leaves are twice or thrice pin- 

 nated with lozenge-shaped or broadly wedge-shaped leaflets, 

 deeply cut into three or five lobes. The flowers grow on long 

 terminal peduncles, and form umbels as in the rest of this 

 family : that is to say, a number of divisions start off from a 

 common point, similar to the rays of an umbrella, and then 

 bear each of them a smaller tuft which grows out on the same 

 plan, all the little divisions being here terminated by a flower. 

 This double branching constitutes a compound umbel, whereas 

 if the flowers terminate the first series of ramifications, the 

 umbel is simple. The branches of the umbels are called rays, 

 the secondary heads partial umbels, and either the general 

 umbel or the partial umbels or both, may have at the point 

 whence they start a whorl of usually narrow, leaflets, called an 

 involucre. In the present instance, which is that of a coarse - 

 growing plant, the general umbel produces from fifteen to 

 twenty rays, two inches long or more, and surrounded by 

 an involucre (rarely wanting) of few linear bracts, whilst the 

 partial umbels have an involucre of several bracts. The 

 flowers are small, whitish, those at the circumference stalked, 

 and mostly but not always barren, while the central ones are 

 fertile and almost sessile. They have a stiff leafy calyx of five 

 short teeth ; and a corolla of five notched petals with an in- 

 flected point; five stamens alternating with the petals, and 

 with them inserted round a little fleshy disk which crowns the 

 ovary, and from the centre of which arise two styles. The 

 fruit is cylindrical or oblong, crowned by the stiffened styles, 



* (Enanthe crocata — Plate 13 A. 



