20 ON SEEDLINGS 



this kind is furnished by Ptychotis Ajowan (fig. 411). The 

 fruit as a whole is ovate and laterally compressed ; and the 

 embryo is shortly linear, and less than half the length of the 

 endosperm. Bupleurum ranunculoides differs chiefly by its 

 oblong fruits and minute obovoid embryo. The primary 

 ridges are acute and much more strongly marked in B. fruti- 

 cosum than in its congener. The fruit of Fceniculum vulgare 

 has strong blunt ridges and the commissure is by far the 

 broadest face of the mericarp. The embryo is slender and 

 more elongated than in Bupleurum. 



The second group is characterised by the triangular outline 

 of the mericarp in transverse section. This is represented 

 by Eryngium giganteum. The fruit as a whole is ovoid, 

 subquadrangular, with four double rows of ascending stiffish 

 scales, and covered with others that are adpressed in the 

 intervening spaces. 



The third group is well characterised by fruits much com- 

 pressed dorsally. The three dorsal ridges of the mericarps 

 are slender ; but those at the edges of the commissure are 

 considerably drawn out, yet united with one another so as to 

 form a single whig encompassing the lateral margins of the 

 fruit. They ultimately separate from one another when the 

 mature cremocarp splits into its component halves. The 

 embryo is minute. The mericarps of Peucedanum Schottii 

 are oblong-oval or elliptical and plano-convex, with a narrow 

 wing. Those of Ferula communis are larger and even more 

 decidedly flattened, seeing that they are scarcely convex on 

 the back, and the marginal whig is much broader. Here 

 may be placed Dorema, Lefeburia, Heracleum, Polytaenia, 

 Opopanax and others. A slight modification is exhibited by 

 Levisticum, Angelica, Archangelica and others, in which the 

 lateral ridges are not united, but form a double wing encom- 

 passing the mericarps. In some genera all the five ridges of 

 each mericarp are drawn out, forming wings as in Pleuro- 

 spermum and some others. The fruit of Pleurospermum is 

 however more convex or but little compressed dorsally. 



In the fourth group the lateral edges of the mericarps are 

 more or less contracted or incurved, making them fluted, or 

 furrowed along the ventral or commissural face. The seeds 



