AKALIACE.E. 145 



ORDER XL VIII. ARALIACE^E, 



Herbs, shrubs or trees, with mostly hollow stems, and alternate lobed 

 or compound leaves. Flowers small, in simple panicled or racemosely 

 arranged umbels. Calyx joined to the ovary, entire or toothed. Petals 

 5, deciduous. Stamens 5, inserted around the border of the calyx out- 

 side of an epigynous disk. Ovary more than 2-celled; styles as many as 

 the cells, sometimes connate. Fruit berry-like. Seeds pendulous; em- 

 bryo minute; albumen fleshy. 



1. AR A LI A, Vaiilant (SPIKENARD). Our species a very coarse peren- 

 nial herb, with ternately compound leaves and large serrate leaflets. 

 Calyx 5-toothed or entire. Disk depressed or 0. Fruit laterally com- 

 pressed, becoming 3 5-angled, fleshy externally; endocarp chartaceous. 



1. A. Californica, Wats. Unarmed, 610 ft. high: leaflets cordate- 

 ovate, 4 10 in. long, abruptly acuminate, simply or doubly serrate: 

 umbels in loose terminal and axillary compound or simple racemose 

 panicles 12 ft. long, each umbel subtended by several linear bractlets : 

 fl. 2 lines long; disk and style-base obsolete; styles united for half their 

 length : f r. 2 lines long. In shaded and moist ravines. 



2. HEDERA, Pliny (!VY). Shrubby, climbing "by aerial roots. Leaves 

 coriaceous, evergreen, simple, lobed. Flowers in a terminal panicle of 

 umbels. Calyx 5-toothed. Styles united into a single very short one. 

 Berry smooth, black; seeds 2 5. 



1. H. HELIX, Gerarde (1633). Leaves ovate, angularly 3 5-lobed, 

 those of the sterile and young shoots more deeply so than those of the 

 flowering branches; these bushy, erect, projecting a foot or more from 

 the climbing main stem: umbels globose: fl. yellowish-green. The 

 English fvy, common on trees in parks, and on buildings, and well 

 adapted to our climate, fruits freely here, and will often be met with wild. 



ORDER XLIX. UMBELLIFER/E. 



Herbs with mostly hollow, striate, angled or fluted stems, and usually 

 compound leaves which are prevailingly -alternate; the petiole dilated 

 or even sheathing at base. Flowers small, in simple or compound 

 umbels (sometimes sessile and therefore capitate). Calyx almost wholly 

 adnate to the 2-celled ovary. Petals 5, mostly valvate in bud, usually 

 inflexed at apex in flower. Stamens 5, alternate with the petals; anthers 

 ovate, subdidymous. Styles 2, simple, more or less dilated at base into 

 a stylopodium. Fruit of 2 closely approximated and often ribbed, some- 

 times winged, always 1-seeded carpels; the intervals between the ribs 

 usually occupied by one or more oil-tubes or viltse. The face by which 

 the two carpels meet or partly cohere is called the commissure. A 



