THE PARSLKY FAMILY 115 



ALLIED SPECIES: Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera 

 biennis L.) is a tall, coarse biennial which occurs throughout 

 the country and 'is easily recognized by its tall, branching habit 

 (4 ft. by 3 ft.), its soft, downy, lance-shaped leaves, and its 

 large, showy, yellow flowers which open in the evening. 



The seeds (Plate 74, fig. 51) are frequent in clover seed. 

 They are produced in large numbers in long, tapering, 4-celled 

 capsules, 2 rows of seed in each cell, which are clustered all 

 along the stems. They are about 1/16 of an inch long, dark 

 reddish-brown, and with a roughened surface much angled by 

 compression in the pods. 



Common Evening Primrose makes only a rosette of leaves the 

 first year. For this reason it appears only in crops sown in autumn 

 or on stubble. In thin clover fields it sometimes occurs con- 

 spicuously and should be either spudded out or cut off below 

 the crown in the first season; or the tall flowering plants should 

 be cut off below the surface and pulled out before the seeds 

 ripen. On stubble land to be sown to grain, the rosette-like 

 plants should be destroyed by fall or spring cultivation. As the 

 pods do not easily shed their seeds and the plants are at all 

 times conspicuous, much contamination of clover seed may 

 be prevented by a little care at harvest time. 



THE PARSLEY FAMILY (Umbellifeme). 



This family contains many herbaceous plants of weedy 

 appearance, seldom of much floral beauty, but important as food, 

 either for their large succulent roots, as carrot and parsnip 

 or for their fleshy leaf stalks, as celery. The seeds of many 

 are aromatic and wholesome, as caraway and coriander. Many ; 

 like cowbane and hemlock, contain virulent poisons. The 

 leaves are mostly pinnatifid, repeatedly sub-divided, and the 

 flowers are borne in mostly flat-topped, umbrella-like clusters, 

 more or less compound. The corolla has 5 divisions, often un- 

 equal in size. 



