THE CARROT FAMILY. 



3^^7 



Many members of the carrot family arc extremely pretty as is this one 

 with its fine yellow flowers and fern-like sprays of foliage. In the distinc- 

 tion of it is to be noticed that the little tufts of hairs at the joints play an 

 important part. It grows along river banks, or in open woods where often 

 later in the season its place is taken by some showy coreopsis. The generic 

 name is from the island of Thapsus where we remember the great m\illen is 

 a native. 



BUTTON SNAKEROOT. RATTLESNAKE MASTLR. 



{lUatc CXVII.) 

 Eryngiu ni aq laitic u in . 



Flozi'cr heads : globose-ovoid; growing on thick peduncles and subtcndccl by 

 ovate-lanceolate, bristle-tipped bracts; similar bracts also mingled with the 

 flowers and forming the involucres. Leaves: linear, tapering to a point at the apex 

 and having a sheathing, clasping base ; sparingly bristled along the margins; 

 parallel-veined ; coriaceous. Sletn : stout ; one to six feet high ; branched above ; 

 glabrous. 



Hardly could a plant be found among the carrot family which in general 

 appearance suggests less its kinship to the wild carrot, the parsleys and 

 other well-known members of the order than this very button snakeroot. Its 

 dense, bracted flower-heads form pleasing, effects more similar to those of 

 some fine grasses, while the foliage is so like the yucca'sthat at one time the 

 plant was called Eryngium yuccaefolium. It grows mostly in pine-barrens 

 and is subject to considerable variation both in height and in the size of its 

 leaves. 



E. Virgi7iumiim, Virginia eryngo, an attractive, slender individual. grow- 

 ing in wet places along the borders of streams and by ponds, bears narrowly. 

 linear leaves, not parallel-veined, and small, dense heads of white dowers, 

 subtended by an involucre of lanceolate, spiny-toothed, or entire bracts 

 which are reflexed and sometimes as long as the heads themselves. They 

 have also a glistening, silvery sheen. 



E. Baldwinu, a species purely of the far south, is here mentioned simply 

 to show the extreme forms of the ortler. Its flower-heads are very small. 

 and it is a slender, almost prostrate little thing, often rooting at the joints. 

 Its upper thread-like leaves are thin and quite unarmed while those nearer the 

 base are three-parted. The earliest or basal leaves have long petioles 



The other interesting members of this genus which occur through our 

 range have necessarily been omitted. 



