554 FLORA OF MADRAS. lUmbelliferae. 



Family LXXYIII. UMBELLIFERAE. 



Herbs, rarely shrubs or trees. Leaves usually alternate, simple 

 or compound, the petiole generally sheathing at base ; stipules 

 or rarely small and scarious. Flowers regular or irregular, 

 hermaphrodite or polygamous, in compound, rarely simple, 

 umbels, the outer flowers of the umbel sometimes radiant ; 

 umbels and umbellules each furnished with involucral bracts or 

 bracteoles, which may sometimes be absent from one or both. 

 Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, limb 5-toothed or 0. Disk 

 epigynous, 2-lobed. Petals 5, epigynous, sometimes unequal, 

 often bifid, with an inflexed apex and a median fold. Stamens 5, 

 epigynous, alternating with the petals. Ovary inferior, 2-celled, 

 crowned by the disk ; ovule solitary in each cell, pendulous ; 

 styles 2, often dilated at the base into stylopods ; stigmas capitate. 

 Fruit of 2 indehiscent dorsally or laterally compressed mericarps 

 separated by a commissure and attached to and often pendulous 

 from a slender forked carpophore ; the mericarps usually marked 

 by 5 longitudinal primary ridges, often alternating with secondary 

 ones, the pericarp traversed by oil-canals (vittae). Seed 1 in each 

 mericarp, pendulous ; albumen cartilaginous ; embryo minute, 

 near the apex, the radicle superior. 



Umbels simple ; leaves orbicular, undivided ; fruit laterally com- 

 pressed ; vittae : 



Mericarps with 3 ridges, the commisural obscure ; flowers white ; 



pericarp of seed thin 1. Hydrocotyle. 



Mericarps with 7-9 ridges, the primary and secondary similar 



netveined between ; flowers red; pericarp thick 2. Centella. 



Umbels in groups of about 3, sessile in the axils of a cymose panicle ; 

 leaves 3-5-partite ; fruit covered with hooked prickles ; vittae many 



3. Sanicula. 

 Umbels compound: 



Fruit laterally compressed : 



Leaves entire ; flowers yellow or lurid ; mericarp with 5 primary 



ridges, the secondary inconspicuous 4. Bupleurum. 



Leaves usually pinnate or decompound ; flowers white : 

 Involucral bracts and bracteoles absent ; umbels leaf -opposed 



Apium. 

 Jnvolucral bracts and bracteoles usually present : 



Furrows between the ridges usually with 1 vitta...5. Carum. 

 Furrows between the ridges 2-3-vittate 6. Pimpinella 



