108 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



at the base, the bracts of the involucre are rather large, frequently 

 lobed ; and in Selinum, inhabiting temperate Europe and Asia, the 

 Cape (and perhaps, it is said, the Andes of Columbia), the involucres 

 and involucels much resemble those of Meum. The bulk of the 

 genus belong chiefly to the temperate regions of the northern hemi- 

 sphere of the old world. ^ 



Capnoplnjlluin, annuals of the Mediterranean region and southern 

 and western Africa, has fruit with much compressed and elliptic -oblong 

 mericarps ; the primary ridges are prominent, entire or tubercular, 

 especially the marginal, which form thick but not wide wings. The 

 bracts of the involucres and involucels are sometimes narrow and 

 sometimes membranous or nearly scarious. The face of the seeds is 

 flat, whilst it is curved in Diplotcenia, often referred to the Peucedans 

 or Ferulas, but the fruit, much thicker and rounded at the back, with 

 obtuse margins, has considerable resemblance to that of Pleurospermum. 

 The vittae are solitary in each furrow. They are perennial plants of 

 the Levant, whose habit and inflorescence closely approaches those 

 of Ferula. 



In Cijmhocarpumj annuals of the Caucasus, the fruit approaches 

 that of Selinum, but it is small, wingless, the carpels being only 

 thinned at the edge. They are thin and deeply concave within, as is 

 also the compressed seed, and the glabrous back bears three 

 inconspicuous fiHform ridges, between which are interposed 

 furrows with solitary vittae. The compound umbels have invo- 

 lucres and involucels formed of bracts ordinarily narrow, more rarely 

 foliaceous. 



(Enanthe (fig. 103, 104) has fruit slightly compressed from front 

 to back or with a nearly circular transverse section. The mericarps 

 generally separate at maturity ; but in the true (Enanthes there is no 

 carpophore, or it is rudimentary and inseparable from the rest of the 

 fruit. The most remarkable character presented is the considerable 

 development of the whitish tissue, called suberose, which consists of 

 cellules full of gas and occupies particular regions. It forms a thick 



1 Polyzygus, an Indian herb, having the pressed, slightly attenuated at the summit, 



habit of Pimplnella, appears allied to the pre- with two or three vittas in each furrow ; but 



ceding plants. It has a tuberous rhizome (?) its fruit has not yet been examined when com- 



scarcely developed, and ovoid fruit, little com- pletely ripe. 



