384 MEDM. [CLASS V. ORDER II. 



Disk large, flaUish, purple. Fruit rather large, elliptical, roundish on 

 a transverse section, the sides somewhat compressed. Carpels with 

 live sharp winged ridges, the lateral ones forming the margins slightly 

 wider than the others. Channels smooth, with numerous simple 

 slender vittcc. Albumen half round, somewhat waved at the hack. 



Habitat. — Pastures and meadows, not unfrequent in England. 

 Near Oxenford Castle and Kelso, Scotland. Rare in Ireland; hy the 

 side of the Foyle river, county of Derry. — 3Ir. D. Moore. 



Perennial ; flowering in July. 



The whole j^lant when bruised gives an unpleasant foetid smell, and 

 does not appear to be generally eaten by cattle. It is nearly allied in 

 generic character to Ligusticum, but its readily distinguished by the 

 obsolete calyx and the shape of the petals. 



GENUS LXVIII. ME'UM.— TouRNF. Spignel 



Gen. Char. Calyx margin obsolete. Petals entire, elliptical, acute 

 at each end. Fruit nearly round. Carpels with five equal some- 

 what winged ridges, the lateral ones forming the margins. 

 Channels W\\\\vad,xiy vittcB. ^/iMwiew- about half round. General 

 involucre of few segments, or wanting, partial of numerous ones. 

 — Name, according to Minshew, from ^hwv, less ; from its dimi- 

 nutive size. 

 I. M. athaman'ticum, Jacq. (Fig. 446.) Spignel, Meu, or Bald- 

 money. Leaves bi-pinnate; leaflets opposite, numerously divided into 

 bristle-like segments, with an acute point. 



English Botany, t. 2249.— English Flora, vol. ii. p. 84.— Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i, p. T33.— Lindley, Synopsis, p. 118.— Athamanta 

 Meum, Linn. — Ligusticum Meum, Crantz. 



Root tapering, fleshy, or somewhat woody, surrounded at the top 

 with the fibrous remains of the leaves of former years. Stem 

 erect, from one to eighteen inches high, round, smooth, striated, 

 slightly branched above, and almost naked. Leaves mostly radical, 

 of a dark green, on long purplish striated footstalks, with a dilated 

 sheathing membranous base, doubly pinnated with crowded opposite 

 leaflets, divided to the base into numerous hair-like segments, with an 

 acute point, and from the segments spreading the leaflets appear 

 whorled. Umbels terminal and lateral, the general of numerous 

 unequal angular rays^ the partial of more numerous short crowded 

 ones. General involucre of a few lanceolate segments, or. mostly 

 wanting, partial of numerous narrow linear ones. Flotvers numerous, 

 crowded, yellowish, the central ones seldom perfect. Calyx margin 



