200 PARSLEY FAMILY. 



LIV. UMBELLIFEE^J, PAESLEY FAMILY. 



Herbs, some innocent and many of them aromatic, others 

 acrid-narcotic poisons, with small flowers in umbels, calyx 

 adherent to the 2-celled ovary, which has a single ovule hang- 

 ing from the summit of each cell, 5 minute calyx teeth or 

 none, 5 petals, 5 stamens, and 2 styles ; the dry fruit usually 

 splitting into 2 seed-like portions or akenes ; seed with hard 

 albumen and a minute embryo. Eryngium and one or two 

 others have the flowers in heads instead of umbels. Stems 

 usually hollow. Leaves alternate, more commonly compound 

 or decompound. Umbels mostly compound; the circle of 

 bracts often present at the base of the general umbel is called 

 the involucre; that at the base of an umbellet, the involucel. 

 The flowers are much alike in all, and the characters are taken 

 from the form of the fruit, and much stress is laid upon the 

 receptacles of aromatic oil (vittce or oil tubes) which are found 

 in most species and give characteristic flavor. The family is 

 too difficult for the beginner ; so that only the common culti- 

 vated species, and the most conspicuous or noteworthy wild 

 ones are given here. 



1. Fruits covered with little scales or tubercles, crowded (as are the flowers) in a 

 head instead of an umbel, and with a pointed scaly bract under each flower. 



1. ERTNGIUM. Flowers blue or white, with evident awl-shaped calyx teeth, and top- 



shaped fruit without any ribs. Leaves in our species simple and with bristly or 

 prickly teeth. 



2. Fruits covered with bristly prickles, bur-like ; umbels compound. 



2. 8ANICULA. Flowers greenish or yellowish, so short-stalked or nearly sessile that the 



umbellets appear like little heads, each with some perfect and fertile and some 

 staminate flowers. Fruits ovoid or globular, not readily splitting in two, not ribbed, 

 completely covered with short, hooked prickles. Leaves palmately parted. 

 8. DAUCUS. Flowers white or cream-color, in a regular compound umbel; the petals 

 unequal, or those of the marginal flowers larger. Prickles in r6ws on the ribs of 

 the short fruit, which splits in two when ripe. Leaves pinnately compound or 

 decompound. 



8. Fruits naked (not prickly) , splitting when ripe and dry into two one-seeded pieces 

 or carpels, each usually with 5 ribs or some of them may be wings. Fruits 

 mostly with oil tubes in the form of lines or stripes, one or more in the intervals 

 between the ribs, and some on the inner face, sometimes also under the ribs. 



* Fruit wingless. 

 +- Marginal flotvers larger and irregular. 



4. CORIANDRTJM. Fruit globular, no* readily splitting in two, indistinctly many-ribbed : 

 a pair of large oil tubes on the inner face of each carpel. Flowers white. Leaves 

 pinnately compound. Plant strong-scented. 



