UMBELLIFKIU:. 147 



an approach in the form of the fruit to the Peucedanea?, hetwccn 

 which and the Angelica; there is no natural distinction. 



Garden Angelica. 



French, Angelique Officinale. German, Gebrducldiclie Engelwurz. 



This plant was formerly cultivated largely in gardens on account of its leaf- 

 stalks, which possess an aromatic pungent taste. They were blanched and eaten as 

 celery ; now they are only used when candied, being, when so prepared, considered to 

 be a pleasant addition to the dessert. They may be seen at Messrs. Fortnum and 

 Mason's, pressed flat and covered with crystallized sugar, tied together in neat tasty 

 bundles with coloured ribbon. In Lapland the stalks are peeled and eaten raw as a 

 great relish. A medicinal water was formerly distilled from the plant, and its 

 reputation in medicine was supposed to be very great ; and the account of its virtues 

 given by Gerarde will certainly amuse, if it do not instruct, those who will take the 

 trouble to read it. He says : — 



" The root of garden Angelica is a singular remedy against poyson and against the 

 plague, and all infections taken by evil and corrupt aire, if you doe but take a piece of 

 the root and hold it in your mouth, or chew the same betweene your teeth — it doth 

 most certainly drive away the pestilential aire; yea, although the corrupt aire hath 

 possessed the hart, yet it. driveth it out againe, as rue and treacle, and such like 

 antipharmaca do. 



"Angelica is an enemy to poysons; it cureth pestilent diseases if it be used in 

 season ; a dramm weight of the pouder hereof is given with thin wine ; or if the fever 

 be vehement with distilled water of Cardans benedictus ; or of tormentile and with a 

 little vinegre, and by itself also, or with treacle of vipers added." 



" It is reported that the root is available against witchcraft and inchantments, if 

 a man carry the same about them, as Fuchsius saith." 



He adds to its many virtues, that " it cureth the biting of mad doggs and all other 

 venomous beasts." 



Tribe VI.— PEUCEDANE^E. 



Cremocarp dorsally compressed ; columella distinct ; mericarps 

 flattened from back to front, with 5 primary ridges, of which the 

 3 dorsal ones are filiform or indistinct, the marginal pair developed 

 into a conspicuous wing ; wings of the two mericarps contiguous, 

 so that the fruit is surrounded by a single wing. Seed flat on the 

 inner face. Flowers in regular compound umbels. 



GENUS XXVI.- P EUCEDANUM. Linn. 



Calyx-limb of 5 teeth, sometimes obsolete. Petals obovate, 

 notched or entire, with an inflexed lobe. Cremocarp oval or 

 oblong, compressed from back to back of the mericarps, surrounded 

 by a conspicuous flat wing ; columella free, bipartite ; mericarps 

 with the 3 dorsal ridges filiform, the marginal ones developed into 



