148 UMBEL LIFEILE. (PARSLEY FAMILY.) 



2. FOTHERGILLA, L. f. FOTHERGILLA. 



Flowers in a terminal catkin-like spike, mostly perfect. Calyx bell-shaped, 

 the summit truncate, slightly 5 - 7-toothed. Petals none. Stamens about 24, 

 borne on the margin of the calyx in one row, all alike : filaments very long, 

 thickened at the top (white). Styles 2, slender. Pod cohering with the base 

 of the calyx, 2-lobed, 2-celled, with a single bony seed in each cell. A low 

 shrub ; the oval or obovate leaves smooth, or hoary underneath, toothed at the 

 summit ; the flowers appearing rather before the leaves, each partly covered by 

 a scale-like bract. (Dedicated to the distinguished Dr. Fothergill.) 



1. F. aliiif61i:t, L. f. Low grounds, Virginia and southward. April. 



3. L.IQUIDAMBAR, L. SWEET-GUM TEEE. 



Flowers usually monoecious, in globular heads or catkins ; the sterile arranged 

 in a conical cluster, naked : stamens very numerous, intermixed with minute 

 scales : filaments short. Fertile flowers consisting of many 2-celled 2-beaked 

 ovaries, subtended by minute scales in place of a calyx, all more or less coher- 

 ing and hardening in fruit, forming a spherical catkin or head ; the pods open- 

 ing between the 2 awl-shaped beaks. Styles 2, stigmatic down the inner side. 

 Ovules many, but only one or two perfecting. Seeds with a wing-angled seed- 

 coat. Catkins racemed, nodding, in the bud enclosed by a 4-leaved deciduous 

 involucre. (A mongrel name, from liquidus, fluid, and the Arabic ambar, am- 

 ber; in allusion to the fragrant terebinthine juice which exudes from the tree.) 



1. L.. Styraciflua, L. (SWEET GUM. BILSTED.) Leaves rounded, 

 deeply 5 - 7-lobed, smooth and shining, glandular-serrate, the lobes pointed. 

 Moist woods, Connecticut to Virginia, and southward. April. A large and 

 beautiful tree, with fine-grained wood, the gray bark with corky ridges on the 

 branchlets. Leaves fragrant when bruised, turning deep crimson in autumn. 

 The woody pods filled mostly with abortive seeds, resembling sawdust. 



ORDER 52. UMBELLIFER^E. (PARSLEY FAMILY.) 



Herbs, with the flowers in umbels, the calyx entirely adhering to the ovary, 

 the 5 petals and 5 stamens inserted on the disk that crowns the ovary and sur- 

 rounds the base of the 2 styles. Fruit consisting of 2 seed-like dry carpels. 

 Limb of the calyx obsolete, or a mere 5-toothed border. Petals mostly 

 with the point inflexed. Fruit of 2 carpels (called mericarps) cohering by 

 their inner face (the commissure'), when ripe separating from each other 

 and usually suspended from the summit of a slender prolongation of the 

 axis (carpophore) : each carpel marked lengthwise with 5 primary ribs, 

 and often with 5 intermediate (secondary) ones ; in the interstices or inter- 

 vals between them are commonly lodged the oil-tubes (vittce), which are 

 longitudinal canals in the substance of the fruit, containing aromatic oil. 

 (These are best seen in slices made across the fruit.) Seeds solitary and 

 suspended from the summit of each cell, anatropous, with a minute embryo 



