fool's-parsley. 327 



from twelve to eighteen inches in height, branched, leafy, 

 smooth, cylindrical, obscurely striated, shining, lurid green, 

 with a dull purplish tinge at the base ; flowering stems deeply 

 and acutely furrowed. The leaves are uniform, bipinnate, the 

 lowermost tripinnate, glabrous, lurid green ; leaflets decurrent, 

 rhomboid-lanceolate, lobed, and cut, rather obtuse, but with a 

 short mucro at the point ; petiole furrowed, slender, sheathing 

 at the base, scarious. The flowers are disposed in terminal 

 umbels of eight to fifteen nearly equal radii, spreading or 

 slightly incurved ; the umbellules small, distant. There is no 

 general involucre, but a partial one of three unilateral, exterior, 

 linear-subulate, drooping leaves *. The calyx is an obsolete 

 margin. The five petals are small and white, obcordate, nearly 

 equal, emarginate, with an inflexed point ; the outermost some- 

 what radiant. The stamens are about as long as the petals, 

 spreading between them, with thread-shaped filaments tipped 

 with roundish anthers. Thegermen is ovate, furrowed, crown- 

 ed by the yellow glandular disk, and terminated by two short 

 recurved styles with obtuse stigmas. The fruit is yellowish 

 brown, ovate, somewhat globose, of two carpels, which are 

 marked with five acute ridges, of which the lateral ones are 

 marginal, and a little broader, and bordered by a somewhat 

 winged keel ; each contains an ovate, plano-convex, brown 

 seed. Plate 21, fig. 3, (a) the corolla, stamen, and pistil; (i) 

 the fruit, somewhat magnified ; (c) the same separating at 

 maturity into two carpels ; (c/) the seed. 



This plant is frequent in fields and gardens in this country 

 and throughout the whole of Europe. It flowers from July to 

 September. 



The generic name is derived from aiSui, to burn, in allusion to 

 its acrid taste. It has been called Cynapium, or Dog's- Parsley, 

 as a mark of inferiority to the common Parsley ; and Lesser 

 Hemlock, in contradistinction to the true or common Hemlock. 



Though sometimes confounded with the plants just men- 

 tioned, Fool's-Parsley diflfers m several conspicuous characters. 

 Being a common weed in rich garden soil, it has been inadver- 

 tently gathered for culinary Parsley, and has given rise to 



* Before the flowers expand, these leaves or bracteae are generally found 

 spreading horizontally ; when the plant is in flower they are quite pendent ; 

 and in fruit, tending inwards. 



