TJMBELLirEE^. 235 



Britain, more frequent in Scotland and Ireland than in England. Fl. sum' 

 mer and early autumn. 



XXXIV. THE UMBELLATE FAMILY. TMBELLIFEE^. 



Herbs, or, iu a few exotic species, shrubs, with alternate 

 leaves, often much cut or divided ; the footstalk usually dilated 

 at the base, but no real stipules. Flowers usually small, iu ter- 

 minal or lateral umbels, which are either compound, eacli ray 

 of the general umbel bearing a partial umbel, or more rarely 

 simple or reduced to a globular head. At the base of the 

 umbel are often one or more bracts, constituting the involucre, 

 those at the base of the partial umbel being termed the involucel. 

 Calyx combined with the ovary, either entirely so or appearing 

 only in the form of 5 small teeth roimd its summit. Petals 5, 

 inserted round a little fleshy disk which crowns the ovary, 

 usually turned in at the point, and often appearing notched. 

 Stamens 5, alternating with the petals. Ovary 2-celled, with 

 one ovule in each cell. Styles 2, arising from the centre of 

 the disk. Fruit, when ripe, sepai'ating into 2 one-seeded, in- 

 dehiscent carpels, usually leaving a filiform central axis, either 

 entire or splitting into two. This axis, often called the carpo- 

 phore, is however sometimes scarcely separable from the carpels. 

 Each carpel (often called a inericarp, and having the appear- 

 ance of a seed) is marked outside with 10, 5, or fewer, promi- 

 nent nerves or ribs, occasionally expanded into loings, and un- 

 derneath or within the pericarps are often longitudinal chan- 

 nels, called vittas, filled with an oily or resinous substance. 

 Embryo minute, in a horny albumen, which either fills the 

 seed or is deeply furrowed or excavated on the inner face, 



^ numerous family, more or less represented nearly all over the glohe ; but 

 the species are comparatively few iu high northern latitudes, as well as within 

 the tropics, their great centre being western Asia and the Mediterranean 

 region. Their inflorescence, and the structure of their flowers, distmguish 

 them at once from aU other famihes, except that of the Aralias, and these 

 have either more than two styles, or the fruit is a berry. But tlie subdi- 

 vision of Vmbellifers into genera is much more difficult. Linneeus marked 

 out several which were natural, but without definite characters to distin- 

 guish them ; and the modern genera, foimded upon a nice appreciation of 

 mmute diSerences in the fruit and seed, are often very artificial, or stiU 

 more frequently reduced to single species, and require as complete a revision 

 as the Crucifers and Composites. These minute characters are moreover 

 in many cases very difficult to ascertain. I have, therefore, in the following 

 Analytical Key, endeavoured to lead to the determination of the sjjecies, as 

 far as possible, by more sahent though less absolute characters, which may 



