160 THE SECOND BOOK OF BOTANY. 



long to it, you would most likely pronounce an elder- 

 bush an umbelliferous plant. "You would find a 

 large umbel, a small umbel, little, white blossoms, an 

 inferior ovary, and five stamens. Yes, it must be an 

 umbelliferous plant. But look again : suppose you 

 take a flower. In the first place, instead of five dis- 

 tinct petals, you find a corolla, with five divisions, it 

 is true, but, nevertheless, with all five joined into one 

 piece; now, umbelliferous plants are not so con- 

 structed. Here, indeed, are five stamens, but you 

 see no styles ; you see three stigmas more often than 

 two, and three grains more often than two ; but um- 

 belliferous plants have never either more or less than 

 two stigmas, nor more or less than two grains to each 

 flower. Besides, the fruit of the elder is a juicy 

 berry, while that of umbelliferous plants is dry and 

 hard. The elder, therefore, is not an umbelliferous 

 plant. If you now go back a little, and look more 

 attentively at the way the flowers are disposed, you 

 will also find their arrangement only in appearance 

 like that of umbelliferous plants. The first rays, in- 

 stead of setting off exactly from the same centre, 

 arise, some a little higher and some a little lower ; 

 the little rays originate with still less regularity; 

 there is nothing like the invariable order you find in 

 umbelliferous plants. In fact, the arrangement of 

 the flowers of the elder is a cyme, and not an um- 

 bel." 



But you need not search for all the characters 

 given in the foregoing description in settling the 

 question whether a plant is or is not umbelliferous. 

 If it bears flowers in umbels, and produces inferior 

 fruit, that when ripe separates into two seed-like 



