UMBELLIFERAE. 669 



family 2. UMBELLIFERAE B. Juss.* 

 Carrot Family. 



Herbs, with alternate decompound compound or sometimes simple 

 leaves, the petioles often dilated at the base. Stipules none, or rarely 

 present and minute. Flowers small, generally in compound or simple 

 umbels, rarely in heads or capitate clusters, often polygamous. Umbels 

 and umbellets commonly involucrate or involucellate. Calyx-tube ad- 

 nate to the ovary, its margin truncate or 5-toothed, the teeth seldom 

 conspicuous. Petals 5, inserted on the margin of the calyx, usually with 

 an inflexed tip, often emarginate or 2-lobed, those of the outer flowers 

 sometimes larger than those of the inner. Stamens 5, inserted on the 

 epigynous disk ; filaments filiform ; anthers versatile. Ovary inferior, 2- 

 celled ; styles 2, filiform, persistent, often borne on a conic or depressed 

 stylopodium ; ovules i in each cavity, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit dry, 

 composed of 2 carpels (mericarps), which generally separate from each 

 other at maturity along the plane of their contiguous faces (the commis- 

 sure). Fruit either flattened laterally (at right angles to the commis- 

 sure), or dorsally (parallel to the commissure), or nearly terete (not 

 flattened). Carpels after parting from each other supported on the sum- 

 mit of a slender axis (the carpophore), each with 5 primary ribs in their 

 pericarps (rarely ribless), and in some genera with 4 additional secondary 

 ones, the ribs or some of them often winded. Pericarp membranous or 

 corky-thickened, usually containing oil-tubes between the ribs, or under 

 the ribs and on the commissural sides, sometimes irregularly scattered, 

 sometimes none. Seeds i in each carpel, usually adnate to the pericarp ; 

 ?eed-coat thin ; endosperm cartilaginous ; embryo small, placed near the 

 hilum ; cotyledons ovate, oblong or linear. About 170 genera and 1600 

 species, of wide distribution. The mature fruit is necessary for the cer- 

 tain determination of most of the genera and many of the species. The 

 following key is wholly artificial. 



* Leaves simple, undivided, sometimes slightly lobed. 



Leaves narrow, mostly spiny-toothed; flowers in dense heads. . Eryngium. 



Leaves ovate and perfoliate in our species ; flowers yellow. 15. Bupleurum. 



Leaves orbicular or ovate, slender-petioled, often peltate. 



Ribs of the fruit simple ; leaves i at a node. x. Jlydrocotyle. 



Ribs anastomosing; leaves tufted at the nodes. 2. Centella. 



Leaves reduced to hollow jointed petioles or phyllodes. 



Umbels simple, few-flowered ; plant low. 31. Liliaeopsis. 



Umbels compound ; plant tall. 42. Oxypolis. 



* * Leaves, or some of them, pinnate, ternate, digitate, decompound or deeply lobed. 



Flowers in sessile or short-stalked capitate clusters opposite the leaves. 



9. Torilis. 



Flowers in simple umbels; leaves pedately lobed. i. Hydrocotyle. 



Flowers in dense peduncled heads ; leaves sometimes bristly. 4. Eryngium. 



Flowers in more or less compound umbels. 

 1. Flowers white, greenish or pink. 



a. Fruit, or its beak, bristly, papillose or tuberculate. 



Leaves digitately 3-7-parted or lobed. 3. Sanicula. 



Leaves pinnately or ternately decompound or dissected. 



Fruit linear, ribbed, long-attenuate at the base. 8. Washingtonia. 

 Fruit linear, with a beak much longer than the body. 



7. Scandix. 



Fruit ovoid, small, tuberculate or bristly. 

 Carpels flattened dorsally. 



Seed-face concave. II. Apiastrum. 



Seed-face flat. 17. Ammoselinum. 



* Text prepared with the assistance of Dr. J. N. ROSE. 



