238 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SCIENCE. 



tributed group of plants named from the fact that the small, 

 five-parted flowers are grouped in clusters called umbels. The 

 leaves are alternate, compound, and usually finely dissected. 

 Many of these plants contain a poisonous juice, and in general 

 the green parts are acrid and poisonous, while the seeds are aro- 

 matic and harmless. The parsnip, carrot, celery and parsley 

 are food products of this family. Coriander, caraway, fennel, 

 aniseed are aromatic and medical products, while gum asafoe- 

 tida, poison hemlock, sweet cicely and others indicate the great 

 variety of plants included in this interesting family. 



The Saxifrage Family is made up of trees, shrubs and herbs, 

 which are not marked by any distinguishing character. The 

 leaves are opposite or alternate, pinnately or palmately veined. 

 There are usually five petals, with from five to ten stamens. The 

 calyx is generally monosepalous, and on it the petals and sta- 

 mens are inserted. To this family belong the currant and the 

 gooseberry, the syringia, hydrangea and the strawberry ger- 

 anium, and other interesting and beautiful flowers. 



The Cactacete or Cactus Family consists of succulent herbs, 

 shrubs or trees, generally spiny and leafless. They grow mainly 

 in dry regions, and the surface for evaporation has been reduced 

 to the green rind of the stem, sometimes increased by a few 

 branches or thick leaves. These plants are illustrations of the 

 great changes in form which plants may undergo in adapting 

 themselves to varied circumstances. The scanty evaporating 

 surface and the protecting spines seem necessary to their exist- 

 ence. Many of these plants are cultivated as curiosities; some 

 furnish edible fruits; the leaves of others furnish a valuable fiber. 

 Some varieties instead of growing one year and maturing seed 

 the second, grow for eight or ten years, and then send up a flower 

 stalk from ten to twenty feet high, mature seed and die. In 

 Mexico as the flower stalk of the pulque plant begins to grow, it 

 is cut off and a bowl-shaped cavity made from which the juice, 

 designed for the growth of the flower stem, is gathered for use 

 by man. It is the Mexican pulque, and from it a distilled liquor, 

 called mescal, is made. 



