122 CLASS V. ORDER II. 



The root is composed of a number of large, oblong, fleshy 

 tubers, diverging from the base of the stem, and frequently being 

 found of the size and length of the finger. The root is peren- 

 nial, and has a strong, penetrating smell and taste. In various 

 parts of the bark it contains distinct cells or cavities, which 

 are filled with a yellowish resinous juice. The plant is from 

 three to six feet high. Its stem is smooth, branched at top, hol- 

 low, jointed, striated, and commonly of a purple color, except 

 when the plant grows in the shade, in which case it is green. 

 The leaves are compound, the largest being about three times 

 pinnate, the uppermost only ternate. Most of the petioles are 

 furnished with long obtuse stipules, which clasp the stem with 

 their base. Leafets oblong, acuminate, serrate, the serratures 

 very acute or mucronated. The veins end in the notches, and 

 not at the points of the serratures. The flowers grow in um- 

 bels of a middling size, without a general involucre. The par- 

 tial umbels are furnished with involucres of very short, narrow, 

 acute leafets. The distinctness or separation of these umbels 

 characterizes this plant at a distance among other plants of its 

 kind, whose umbels are more crowded. Calyx of five very 

 minute segments. Petals five, white, obovate, with inflected 

 points. Fruit nearly orbicular, compressed, ten furrowed, 

 crowned at top, and separating into two semicircular seeds. — 

 Common in wet meadows. — July, August. — Perennial. 



This is probably the most dangerous of all our poisonous ve- 

 getables, and various instances of speedy death have taken place 

 in children who have unwarily eaten the root. See a particular 

 account in the American Medical Botany, volume 1. 



CicuTA BULBiFERA. L. Dulbifcrous Cicuta. 



Leaves decompound, linear ; branches bulbiferous. 



Stem about three feet high, round, hollow, striated, green, 

 with a slight glaucous powder. Leaves thrice compound ; leafets 

 smooth, linear, with divergent teeth. Stipules membranous, 

 gradually lost in the petiole. Branches numerous, covered with 

 small oval, acuminate, scaly bulbs, invested by the dilated base 

 of leafets, resembling bractes. These bulbs are in whorls when 

 young, but are afterwards scattered by the growth of the branch- 



