UMBELLIFER^E 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: brackish marshes. 



THE PLANT: erect, one foot to two feet high, much branched, 

 the branches somewhat erect, or sometimes widely spread- 

 ing; the stems tufted, slender. 



THE LEAVES: alternate; finely dissected into thread-like 

 divisions; the upper stemless, the lower petioled. 



THE FLOWERS : tiny, in umbels which are two to four inches 

 wide. 



THE FRUIT: called a mericarp, ovate, very small. 



Around the borders of brackish ponds one sees, as if they 

 had been planted, in delightful abundance among the 

 grasses, the blue skullcap, the pinkish germander, the 

 yellow St. John's-wort, and, softening the whole with 

 their featheriness, tiny white flowers on delicate stems 

 which are all but concealed by fine, thread-like leaves. 

 This is the Mock Bishop-weed a plant of persistent in- 

 dividuality, that blooms just as eagerly when only a few 

 inches high as when more than a foot. 



UMBELLIFER^E PARSLEY FAMILY 



Sium cicutcefolium, Schrank. 



White 



Hemlock Water Parsnip. 

 July-September 



Sium: Greek name for some marsh plant. 

 Cicutcefolium: Latin for the leaf of the hemlock. 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: swamps. 



THE PLANT: erect, two feet to four feet high; the stem with- 

 out hairs, hollow. 



THE LEAVES: alternate; compound, the divisions linear to 

 lanceolate, without hairs on either surface, mostly acu- 



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