119 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



IV. Knotgrass (P. aviculare). Annual. Stems branching from the root, very 

 slender and straggling, smooth. The leaves small and grassy, stipules small, white, 

 torn-looking, red at the base. Flowers very small in the axils, pink. Stamens 

 eight, styles three. Waste places and neglected gardens. May till October. The 

 seeds are much esteemed by birds, and to the entomologist the fresh plant is invalu- 

 able as an almost universal food for the caterpillars of geometers. 



V. Black Bindweed (P. convolvulus). Annual, with twining stems. The leaves 

 are very similar to those of the true Convolvulus, the lobes more pointed ; stipules 

 short. Sepals green, with paler margins. Fields and wastes. July to September. 



Fool's Parsley (AZthusa cynapium). 



Fool's Parsley is fond of cultivated ground, and it is no un- 

 usual thing for it to make its appearance in the very garden 

 beds that have been set apart for rearing that pot-herb for which 

 fools are said to mistake it. It is an annual, with a spindle- 

 shaped, fleshy root, round, hollow stem, branched, and marked 

 with fine longitudinal lines. The leaves are smooth, compound, 

 and bluish green in tint. The wedge-shaped leaflets are them- 

 selves pinnate, and the pinnae are lobed. The flowers are small 

 and irregular, white, grouped in small umbels, which are again 

 gathered into large umbels of umbels. 



The reader is invited to turn back to page 55, where the 

 structure of umbelliferous flowers and fruits is more intimately 

 described. The small umbels in ^Ethitsa are provided with an in- 

 volucre consisting of three or five little bracts, very narrow and 

 hanging vertically. This feature will serve to distinguish SEthusa 

 from all other umbellifers. The entire plant is evil- smelling, 

 and said to be poisonous. It flowers during July and August, 

 and is the only species. It gets its generic name from the 

 Greek aitho, to burn, from its acrid character, and its specific 

 name is a combination of Kynos, dog, and apion, parsley, which 

 is a further note of its worthless character. 





