122 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Sison Aniomum. 



worlds ; it exists also in sub-tropical countries, in Southern and 

 Eastern Africa, in India, in the two Americas. They are annual, 

 biennial, or perennial herbs. The leaves are pinnate, decompound 

 pinnate or ternatipinnate, sometimes entire or more or less dentate, 

 resembling those of certain Cruciferce, &c. Their flowers, white, 

 yellow, or pink, are in compound umbels ; nothing is so variable as 

 the number and dimensions of the bracts of their involucres and 

 involucels, both of which are often completely wanting. ' 



It is difficult to separate clearly from Flmpinella, that is from 

 Carum, Bulhocastanum, herbs with a tuberous root or rhizome, in 



which the bracts of the involucres and 

 involucels are often but not constajitly 

 wanting, and which have a fruit generally 

 more oblong with mericarps subcylindrical 

 or slightly compressed at the sides, at- 

 tenuate at the summit. The vittae are 

 numerous, continuous or interrupted, very 

 distinct or very thin, and the face of the 

 seed is concave or traversed by a deep 

 furrow. These plants inhabit temperate 

 Europe, Western Asia, and the north of 

 Africa. 



Sison Amomum (fig. 122) is also a very 

 near neighbour of Carum, with a short, 

 almost didymous fruit, and it is to Carum 

 what Heraclium is to Peucedanum ; for its vittae, wide and solitary in 

 each furrow, occupy only a variable extent of the upper portion and 

 terminate in a point or in a mass. It is an annual or biennial herb 

 of Europe. 



Ammi is also very analogous to the Caraways. The calyx is but 

 little developed or nil ; the stylopods are conical or depressed ; and 



Fig. 122. Fruit (f 



Carum), 852 {Lomatocarum, Sympoditwi, El- 

 wendia), 853 {Bunmm, Muretia), 854 [Lereschia, 

 Pimpinella), 857 {Reutera), 862 {Edosmia) ; Anv. 

 i. 344 {Petroxelinum), 345 (Falcaria, Carum, 

 Acronema), 346 {Pimpinella, Ainsometros, Petro- 

 sciadium, Reutera), 347 {Murrithia) ; ii. 696 

 {Zizia, Ptychotis), 697, 698 {Buidum, Pimpi- 

 nella) \ V. 65 {Ptychotis, Carum), 69 {JBunium, 



Cryptotmnia, PimpinellcC), 68 {Deverra). 



^ Here is doubtfully placed Froriepia, a pe- 

 rennial herb of the Levant, unknown to us, but 

 which, according to the characters given of it, 

 would differ from the Petroselixum section of 

 Carum in having nine ridges in each mericarp 

 of the fruit (5 primary and 4 secondary) and in 

 the absence of vittic. 



